wendy house

The clientelle of a real ale pub in a midlands town

The pants of the khaki Cargo make an appearance

I wandered in without realising this was a women-free zone. A couple of the locals appear a bit overexcited by the novelty of a woman in the place. They remind me of those small dogs that attach themselves to your ankles.  Kind of cute, if a bit random and inappropriate. Shift workers at a local factory, some ex-students, they boast of thier prison histories, mention that I’ve got  “great pins” and slur other stuff I could barely understand

I’m more than glad when my companions saunter in…

His father

They’ve been together for 4 years. He’s only 21, it doesn‘t feel right. When I was his age I’d wake up in the morning, call my mates and we’d be in Athens by noon. We weren’t rich, we would find ourselves work there, stay all summer, make it up as we went along, We could get by. Don’t get me wrong, I love my wife, we’ve been together for 20 years, but I wouldn’t do it again. Wouldn’t get married again.

A bee bumbled between us

At 21 he should be seeing the world, not settling down, there’s plenty of time to settle down later.

Her mother

He‘s got no money, he doesn‘t go out, he just sits in front of the TV and eats junk food. He can‘t cook. He’s doing a computer games degree course. He’s written one game and even she thinks its crap. She’s insecure and he’s a safe bet, she doesn’t love him so he can’t hurt her. His mother visits every week to deliver the folded, bagged, fresh laundry and pick up the stuff that needs washing. He doesn’t even take the laundry out of the bag. His mother does my daughters laundry too. They’ve got no life in them

candlelight flickers across her damp eyes

He’s a couch potato and he’s making her into one.

PS thank you to Ben and Alison. Love you. 223 word post before the PS

From job application to visa clearance took 14 months. From the day I handed my notice in at work we started to tell our friends and families about my new job in the USA.  Mostly people chose not to ask the obvious questions. As if we were all complicit in an assumptive silence. I was relieved when people asked

were you going too? No
Would we still be friends. Yes
How would it work? Phone calls and holiday visits
Why were we splitting-up? a 9hr time-zone gap, a 9hrs flight, we would not be a couple
Was it just because the job? ….

You are a good actor, you played the victim well and mostly I let you take the role without editorial. You would be staying here with our friends, I was leaving everyone. Leaving a way of life, friends, a job behind. It felt like I was running away. I was glad that I had been able to find somewhere to run to. Without your cold love I would never have had the confidence to emigrate, to take on a completely new job in a completely new continent, to take a mortgage on a house that wasn’t even built yet and whose plot I hand’t even seen.

you’re bonkers!

maybe I was

Previous paragraphs in this story:

1. The begining of the end
2. Send in the helicopters
3. The usual please
4. No compromise
5. Ditched by the bitch

has anyone ever told you that you are a callous bitch? Because you are

The vehement anger felt like a punch in the face. Especially suprising from an acquaintance that hadn’t asked, and didn’t know, why I was leaving.

This acquaintance assumed, like others, that I was leaving you because of an impressive job opportunity. The job offer was a serendipitous coincidence that you were playing on – for sympathy.  Your play was working well, at the expense of my reputation as a member of the human race. Rather than tell the pressumptious aquaintance the real reason I decided to counter-play on traditional gender role models, with a near* truth

I begged him to come with me, there are plenty of good job moves he could make if he wanted to come too, but he didn’t want to interrupt his service continuity with Natwest. We weren’t worth it

The tearfulness prompted by his verbal punch, and the real reasons, added a sense of pathos and enhanced the impression of sincerity. Perhaps his punch was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

* no begging involved

Previous paragraphs in this story:

1. The begining of the end
2. Send in the helicopters
3. The usual please
4. No compromise

but I love you

Sceptically I watch your eyes brimming with tears, marvelling at your apparant ability to turn the waterworks on when it suits you. Remembering the other times I’ve seen you cry, now seeing these tears with a new lens. In ths moment I am the cold person. Respecting your request not to touch you, I watch you cry, listen to your implores

you are the only girl I will ever love, I will love you for ever, you will still be as beautiful when you’re in your 90′s wearing a silly hat and quirky clothes. There is no-one else for me, please don’t leave me

In my arrogance I find your words believable, if a little confusing.  A day earlier and I would have accepted your words at face value, thrown my arms round your neck and showered you with kisses.

Today I wonder if you have mistaken loving me with your ability to manipulate me to suit your wonts. Is what you really love, having a quirky trainable pet? Could my role in your life be replaced by a chow chow? I try not to smile at the thought of you parading a chow chow at your business bankers social events. Smiling at inappropriate times has occassionally gotten me into trouble. Maybe there is a practical deal we can do that will work for both of us

I want the freedom to be happy, to love unselfconsciously with the whole of my being. If I am free to find a lover then I could remain living with you as a friend

The offer was not acceptable, a discrete affair was not an option. Even with your face glazed in brine you remain an uncompromising negotiator. Left with the choice of

• staying in celebacy to avoid your tears and align with your concept of love, or
• leave and risk finding both happiness and a recognisable expression of love

Still a suprisingly difficult decision, again I chose the risk of happiness over the certainty of your controlling, cold, love

Previous paragraphs in this story:

1. The begining of the end
2. Send in the helicopters
3. The usual please

As we walked into the Robin Hood the landlady caught my eye and smiled. She had one pint pulled before we’d even reached the bar. With a smile for Sue you took the pint and walked off into the smoke . Sue and I exchanged pleasantries while she pulled my usual. Moving out of your home might mean this would cease to be my local pub, my usual pint, my friendly landlady.

Sue’s son was due out of prison soon. Sue was nervous about him coming back home. Would he be able to stay off the drugs, stop thieving, stop tearing her life apart. Taking a long, slow, sup from the first of what might be more than my usual 2 pints, I listened to Sue unburden her worries. My face would have shown the wear of my thoughts, looking like concern for her troubles. The reversal of tradtitional roles pulled a smile in the darkness, the customer listening to the woes of the publican. My burden was light by comparison to hers. I didn’t particularly relish the thought of meeting Sue’s son.

Peering through the smoke I watch you cheerfully chatting with a local school teacher. I’m in no hurrry to join you, everything I want to ask or say can be left unsaid in this very public place. . But some things will need sorting before bedtime. Bedtime stories that are bound to bring sleeplessness. I blamed the tears on the smoke in the pub.

Previous paragraphs in this story:

1. The begining of the end
2. Send in the helicopters

.

continuation of: the beginning of the end
The path wasn’t wide-enough for the two of us to walk, not-touching, side by side. You strode down the middle of the path, looking straight ahead. Six inches to your left, our legs and strides the same length, I walked uncertainly on the grass verge. Watching my feet incase a dip or bump conspired with you to make me fall. You didn’t invite me onto the pavement or slow your pace to ease my stumbling. The tone of your walk clearly drawn to include no courtesy to me. The frosty grass crunched beneath my feet and headlights temporarily blinded me as we walked the mile in silence.

Like pulling a rug from under me, your few words had irrecovably changed memories from loving moments to contrived deceptions. Something inside me died. Years earlier we’d insured our escape from Lundy island for £5 incase the boat couldn’t land in a storm. A storm brewed, the helicopter rescued us. Now the magic rug had been pulled I wanted something more real, that helicopter, NOW. To be whirled away from the impending storm.

By the time we arrived at the pub, I understood that I had to leave you. I didn’t know when or how, but I knew it would happen. Perhaps that’s what you wanted. In employment contexts I believe they call it constructed dismissal:

1. Your employer has committed a serious breach of contract
2. You felt forced to leave because of that breach
3. You have not done anything to suggest that you have accepted their breach or a change in employment conditions

The frost was already forming as we left our warm home, heading for an equally warm evening in our local pub. I love autumn, I loved him, the fleece hat I’d given him last christmas pulled over his ears and his hands deep in the pockets of an oversized down jacket that hid his slight frame. I smiled and smoothly slipped my gloved hand through the crook of his elbow

Don’t

Don’t what?

Touch me

I don’t understand

I don’t like being touched

There was a long silence as we walked along the icy pathway and the implications of his words painfully began to blossom

Is this a new thing or have you always felt like this?

I’ve always felt like this

With these few words he deliberately, irrevocably destroyed an illusion he’d previously carefully constructed.  Now he’d knowingly set us on different pathways. He was colder than the evening, colder than the ice. In my pain I lashed out with a warm, tearful broken whisper

you did a good job of faking it for 4 years

A bridge over the river Siene is decorated with messages of love.

Padlocks.

On the barrel of each padlock is a message of love, some in black pen, some in red varnish.

Beautiful art emerging in one place, bought by so many lovers.

It’s visual, community poetry, in action. Sculpture. Very moving

He looked like I imagined Heathcliffe, all those years ago when at 12 I lost myself in the book. Even a stream of famous actors had failed to live up to my imagination.  That day in our brief conversations I found him to be softly spoken, not self-preposessed,  considerate of the other people around him. The serenity round him was reminsicent of Gregory Peck. 

The collar on his large white shirt had frayed through wear. It reminded me of my sweet smelling  ruffled white bedding, softened through use, always inviting. Together the rugged good looks, slightly neglected look and serenity had a powerful gravitational force on my heart. Alas, I wasn’t looking like Lauren Bacall or Audrey Hepburn. For a moment I felt terribly tatty, wishing I had practiced the socially acceptable art of girliness so that I could do all those things that are meant to be attractive, bat long dark mascara laden eyelashes at him, step forward confidently in high heels, smile with reddened lips and glance sideways at at him though contact lenses rather than spectacles. Luckily, this suprise moment of intensley painful insecurity passed quickly with thoughts of my resemblance to the fabulously beautiful Patti Smith.

When we parted I took his hand in both of mine, smiled into his deeply dark eyes, and told him that I was certain that we would meet again.

the snow is cold and fresh, lets go out on the downs and make love, I really want to make love outdoors, please…

I knew the pull of making love in freshly fallen snow.

But not with him. We weren’t even friends, let alone lovers. Once I would have considered that all part of the fun.  I’d learned the hard way that strangers with a sense of vitality, of living life to the full, seemed to come in a package that perversely included a need to possess, control.  To own you in a way that breaks legal and moral boundaries, that breaks skin, bone, hearts and noses.  I’m more cautious now.

Masturbate or find another partner, I’m not interested

 lover: you’re a very visual person

wendy: I’ve got two eyes and I like to keep them peeled lest I start to loose things and fall over more than normal

lover: no, i mean you like to make love in the daylight, outdoors

wendy: that”s so much more than visual. Thats the breeze drying the sweat on your back, smell of the dew on the grass and the leaf mulch in your hair, the shiver from the scatchy snow on your buttocks.  That’s not just visual, that’s living.

lover: that will take me a while to get used to

But he never got the chance to ‘get used to it’ because I wasn’t patient enough to be waiting for someone in their 40′s to learn how to make love out from under cover of darkness, sheets and comfort of artificially sprung surfaces.  There are times when throwing caution to the evening breeze is exhillerating and worthy of a plunge

Office manager (OM): Have you got your keys?

wendy: yes

OM: your phone?

wendy: Oh, let me check, yes

OM: your power cable?

wendy: YES! I remember packing that one

OM: your wallet?

wendy: yes

OM: your jacket?

wendy: I didn’t come with a jacket

OM: are you sure?

wendy: yep, I’m sure

OM: OK, so I’m not going to be getting a message tomorrow asking me to find something and mail it back to you?

wendy: that’s right, I’ve got everything I came with and more. I wish there was someone like you in my home, I miss having someone check that I’ve got my marbles before I leave my home. Paper checklists aren’t quite as much fun

In less than 2 minutes I’d fallen deeply in love with a youngster, he must be all of 30yrs.  His name badge says Glen. A good name, other members of the wendy house family are called Glen, but that wont cause a problem.  Glen can solve problems.

He smiles, talks sense, makes constructive left of field suggestion, shows me diagrams, puts different phones in my hand while he uses a real pen to do some quick maths on a sheet of paper. He compares the prices of different solutions for me.  I’m totally hooked.  After this brief and productive conversation, this performance, we make a date for next Saturday. I bounce out of car phone warehouse with an abundance of teeth reflecting the hot glow of the summer sunshine.  Maybe I should propose on Saturday.  Before or after I’ve purchased something, what’s the ettiquette?

 Well done Reading town’s carphone warehouse, your staff recruitment strategy is excellent.  Looks like I’ll be dropping my service relationships with t-mobile, Orange, and BT all in one go for the ‘TalkTalk’ service that some of the Wendy House family are already using.  Hoorah

Thankyou to Happy Frog’s friend for pointing me to the carphone warehouse

the 15th June.

Ides of June.

Recurring.

Recurring in Outlook.  Outlook synchronised with my cell phone. 2 messages meet me today

Your birthday (my phone). your birthday (my laptop).

I want to forget all that made loving you hurt me.  A party made loving you fun.

I miss the parties I arranged for your birthday. Reading the reminder I want to send you a card.  But maybe not.

I want to arrange a parrty. But maybe not.

I wish I could let it all go and delete the recurring reminder. But maybe not.

Party. Love. Sunshine. Summer. Love.

The wendy house has spent 4 years together with wordpress. This is one of the longer technology-service relationships that I’ve participated in.  

Still feels good

Happy valentines day

Jill: do you think he’s handsome?
Gail:   Handsome isn’t quite the word I’d use,   cute, good looking,   cheeky,   maybe.   Those dimples, pale green eyes and tight perky bum are a class above the other boys

Jill: is he your boyfriend?
Gail:   NO! Why d’you think that?

Jill: Well,   I saw you holding hands and you’re always hanging-out together after school
Gail: no,   he’s just a friend, I keep thinking I should fancy him,   what with him being so pretty and all,   but I don’t…   …don’t know why

Jill: are you gay?
Gail:  don’t think so, I don’t fancy any girls

Jill: do you fancy any boys?
Gail: no.   It’s  really disappointing,   I keep hoping that it’s just because I haven’t met the right boy yet,   but how many boys do you have to meet?   Everyone else seems to find people to go out with and  snog in the corridors.  

Jill: what about Andy?   He’s nice, tall, funny  and clever, there’s a whole load of girls want to go out with him,   you sit next to him in maths and history  and you go round his place after class, some of the girls are really jealous
Gail: Really?!    He’d love to know that,   can I tell him?  

Jill: NO!   way-too embarassin’
Gail: You too?!     Why can’t I see it, whatever it is that he has that you all fancy

I love her. Tears streaming down John’s face.   I know. Liz reassures him

I didn’t love any of the others. As one of ‘the others’ Liz understands, laugh’s, lowers and softens  her tone   I know.

Where is she?   Liz knows that  Maria is skinny-dipping with her new lover, John’s friend,  on a beach 5 miles west of the camp site.   She can look after herself,   where-ever she is,   she’ll be alright.

John takes the torch, scrambles out of Maria’s tent and starts stumbling from tent to tent,   peering in, stumbling.   He’s been drinking.   Liz curses the lads for leaving John with the holiday  whisky stash.

Where is she? Liz parries   ‘It doesn’t matter.    Where-ever she is,   it’s none of our business.   John,   ITS OVER, she’s left you, she doesn’t want to  see you.   Let her go’   John doesn’t appear to hear.   He makes his way to his aging MG midget and climbs in.   Liz runs to the car and jumps into the passenger seat.  

John,   you’re in no state to drive,   DONT DRIVE.   The car lurches over the field’s uneven ground, Liz wishes she was old enough to drive   Calm down,   where are you going?   As he shifts to second gear  he says ‘the pub’.    Liz tries again Can we walk?  John is determined   You can walk if you want.   The pub is only 3 miles away,   the roads are deserted,   they could make it.    The lad’s are in the pub,   support,   distraction and warmth.    They swerve down the  dry-stone-wall lined winding roads.

John  seemed to need  to move his relationship loss of control and emotional pain to something physical.

A wall mangled the Midget

Love crashed

As they strode towards each other through the bed warehouse John’s baritone reassured the young besuited sales assistant

I’m looking for a bed
me too! Sarah’s soprano sang,   John stopped, turned to face her
Are you? his slight Oklahoma drawl,   playfully suggesting a challenge
No,  I’m looking for YER bed misser Sarah tilted her head and  flashed her lashes to take up the challenge. John blushed with a hint of a smile before turning back to the sales assistant.  

The technical bed-purchasing discussions didn’t interest Sarah.    From across the warehous she interrupted their conversation to ask the sales assistant If I takes me shoes off can I jump on yer beds… …to test em out like? the young besuited assistant nodded.  

Sarah kicked of her pumps, leapt onto the nearest bed then launched from bed to bed across the store finally  stopping by John who was lying on his back.  His body barely moved as she landed beside him. His eyes were closed,  his fingers woven together across his chest. If she hadn’t known he was testing sleep she might have thought him dead. Sarah gently kissed Johns serene forehead.    

Are you dead? Can I wake the dead?! Sarah started trampolining by John’s side.   With a slow deliberate move he swung his arms round her legs and draggged them to the foot of the bed.   She fell neatly  in a giggling bundle beside him.

“I think this one will do,   don’t you?” he said to the sales assistant while holding Sarah’s gaze.

Person At Party In Garden (PAPIG): is [chap] coming to the party?

Wendy:   I don’t know,   I think he might be out of the country,   he was in Australia on Monday

PAPIG:   is he YOUR man?

Wendy: (calmly spills drink over wasp while gatheirng composure)…no, he’s not my man…

PAPIG: I thought that was strange…   …I mean,   your man being out of the country

Wendy: Oh (signifying a brain-stall prompted by the assumption that I possess a man that is averse to leaving  the country)

March 15th 1984

It  will take several months to read the varied  scrawl of miss-spelt ramblings in my early diaries.    Mumzie recently  discovered these diaries in a  dark corner of her home.    The diaries stop in 1984 when I switched to letter writing…

A second sheet was added to this  1984 entry during my first year at University.     The day went something like this:  

A morning of contemplating whether  a fascinating but somewhat screwed-up boy  should have the benefit of my influence in his life.    

An  afternoon  sketching portraits of 2 handsome boys while they supplied me with lots of tea.   The tea taking isn’t explicitly mentioned because it is  understood as a part of  the ‘spending an afternoon with a handsome fellow’ process.   The boys  had the afrontary to  keep the sketches.   Sadly,   I don’t actually have copies of any of the portraits I used to produce.   I was fairly prolific with my sketch-book as well as in my diaries.    

The evening involved drinking ‘side cars’ in a disco and  helping a girl-friend disrupt the dancefloor during some of those slow girl-boy cuddling dances by jumping around between the soppy-people.    

A  fabulous day indeed.

twenty-seventh post in  a computer analgesic Wednesday series  of “why wendy’s single“.    

Reason # 27: not parallel processing potential partners

Recent discussions with local boys and gals and last year’s indepth insomniacal analysis of an internet dating service suggests that the  predominant  local approach to securing  mutually enjoyable naughtiness involves parallel processing.   I don’t think that I am either sufficiently inspired or skilled to  use this approach.

boys with fancy toys captured my childish attention.  
during my teens fast, animated, talkers arrested this heart.  
moody, anachronistic, lads provoked passion through my 20′s.    
the 30′s  found unassuming social facilitators gifting eternal love.
what qualities will seduce this heart through its 40′s?  

Hope  desires wisdom

written at 2am on a quiet, sleepless, balmy, summer Seattle night. (Wendy age 42)

1990

While searching my drawers for material to take to this diary reading event  I rediscovered way too much ‘poetry’,   uhum.   Below is  a piece inspired by Swampthang,   presented in original scrawl.    To read  it you need to

START SQUINTING NOW:

Judging by the uneven scrawl it could have been written on a #11 bus.

Wendy:   “How long are your jump leads?”

Guy:   “this long”

Whips  them out to demonstrate. Wendy blushes then smiles.   Easily over 10ft of lead.   More than enough to  reach LooSea.

Wendy:   “Will you marry me?”

Bouncing and clapping hands with eyes clearly fixed on the jump leads.   Nearly slips on the wet-grass.

Guy: “I don’t think my wife would approve”

eyes focused on his jump leads with  no actual jumping.

The rest of the conversation is unpublishable.  

My proposal wasn’t accepted.  

Sigh

Wendy persistently-impulsive

Wendy: ‘…(unpublishable work-related suggestion in email)..”

Potential fiancee:   “Please!! Yes!! Go for it!! Onward!”

Perhaps i should do a few sensible things  before I propose like

• wait until I’ve known of the guy for more than 2 days,  
• had more than  1 verbal  conversation with  him,  
• find out if he’s ‘taken’ or not ‘into’ girls,  
• check his age, height and weight    (meet him)
• fully assess  his potential player characteristics

Seems like a more ‘sensible’, British reserve, type-thing to do.    Then again I’m not in Britain now.    Maybe I can be ‘racey’?

What do you think?   Advice?

• I get blog design freedom.   Release the Bloggers! I’m seeking categorisation, search, drafting (spelling)  facilities.   Visual customisation opportunities are a minimum requirement.
• I learn something.
• readers aren’t required to have a passport.

• Purchased  Web Service with subsidised Domain space  from GoDaddy:   http://www.wendyhome.com/

GoDaddy tutorials are extremely good.    They are  ’Wizard’ step-by-step guides with pictures of what you will see at each step.  The difficult bit is working out  which tutorial I need!    

• Used Microsoft publisher (first time) to produce and publish a ‘Draft’ webpage on the Domain.   Needs some planning and  ’Design’!!!!!    

I hope to ferment creative ways to use web-pages around the Blog…

• Put  ‘WordPress 2′  and “MoveableType” Zip files on  the Web Server.   By first downloading it to my computer then ‘moving’ it using FTP to the WendyHome web server.   This did involve  CRASHING  IE 6.0 4 times.  I sent Micorosoft the details of each crash through their ‘Send Error Report’ system.   Hope someone fixes something so others don’t have to deal with that.  

Everytime I try to open the zip file’s on the web-server  I get a message saying thet are currupted. Sigh. I’m ‘blocked’ from progress here.

• Completed a preliminary evaluation of  the free blogging software (QuickBlog V1.1)   provided with the web-server space purchase.   Practical results  show on:   http://the.wendyhome.com/

• Excellent categorisation system management system!
• Ability to ‘import’ past blog entries using RSS.   Import  constrained by MSN Spaces to last ’25′ entries and no comments.   Sigh.
• Poor entry editting GUI .  For example, no colour palette,   I’d have to LEARN HTML.   No thanks…
• Spell-check on entries.   Hooray!!!!
• Extremely limited visual and modular customization (embedded lists etc) personalization (themed templates) opportunities compared to MSN Spaces.   Oh deary.
• Commenters can leave their email address for me,   rather than ‘pulbished.   Hooray!
• Horrific supplier advertising at the top of the blog-page.   This one persistent visual-yuck feature drives me getting either WordPress or MoveableType working on the WebServer.

 

 I’ll be moving the Wendyhouse sometime soon.   Soon?    Maybe  by August at this rate….

W Doing-it-herself (One-care)

Apparantly my scary boobs were just tooooo much for the youngster.   They seem to have totally undermined his ability to dial or text my phone numbers when I’m likely to answer,    reply-send an  email to me then prompted him to re-post his online dating profile and actively use it.  

Who would have guessed?   According to Jennifer throwing my panties at him would have produced better results than pointing the booby-dudes at him.

Never under-estimate the power of the booby-dudes,   insulated or not,   they can have far-reaching effects.  

Affectionately known by the brave, and Amadeus,  as

Bill and Ben

Pickles:   <looking directly at Wendy’s boobs>   “I’m not a big boob man,   those are quite big“

Wendy:   “they’re ‘B’ the rest is mainly bra-padding to keep them warm”

Pickles:   <looks relieved>  

A date called Pickles?   A quick glance in his fridge revealed a door almost exclusively filled with A LOT of bottled ketchup-style sauces,   a home made curry and a big US style pickle jar,   full gherkins.  

After minimum instruction he’s mastered making a decent cup of PG tips using a pyramid bag, mug,   water, microwave and milk.   We had to make an excursion to a shop for the milk.   UK people should note that several USians who have risked inviting me into their homes didn’t have

• electric kettles

• stove-top kettles (they use coffee machines)

• milk in thier fridge (because they use cream in their coffee)

Since arriving in the US I’ve learned to carry emergency teabags and  improvise on the kettle.   I haven’t  found a milk solution other than  going to the shop.

W  

<Mawkishness warning>

This letter is to tell you how
I am thinking of you here and now.I was just thinking of you then.
Later.  I will consider you again.  

I cannot miss what I’ve never had.
I can mull over an amusing lad,

Build smiles around anticipation,
Delight in shared appreciation.

<Mawkishness over>

No puking please.

Occassional outbursts  of soppiness are a  side-effect of being Wendy.