Isaac is the best thing ever

I have lost the cable that goes from my phone to the computer, so I can't put any pictures up. But if I did put pictures up, they would be of the most perfect looking little sweetie anyone has ever seen. Oh man, and he is incredibly sort of animated for someone who is only a week old. Lots of waving his small arms around and yawning and sneezing and hiccuping. Mae and Dan are so happy, and they love him so much, and neither of them can tear their eyes away from him for even one second. It's really the best.

This is all just so I can tell a very short Bob story at the end

Last night we were talking about the books we've read that have really made an impression on us. This wasn't that conversation called "Which is your best book?" It's more that there are certain books that you read at certain points in your life that leave you sort of suspiciously wondering if it was written particularly for you. And obviously not in the way of it just mirroring your life or whatever. It's more that thing of the writer apparently conspiring with your present set of circumstances to essentially just run you over.

For example: Dan read Seize The Day like a week before Isaac was born, and it completely completely owned him. "I had to go for a drive," is what he said. And the thing is, I read it a while ago and really liked it, and thought about it for a bit, but there are other Saul Bellow books I have got into way more.

One of my ones, for some reason, is All The Pretty Horses. It's very strange, because I don't even so much like Cormac McCarthy, even though lots of people I think are really smart just love him. Like I thought The Road was a real pits and a drag, and that sort of "sparse" "stripped down" thing of "having such a manly uncompromising vision of the future that doesn't cater to our effete sensibilities and sees somehow beyond them into the yawning chasm of what lies ahead, where the only thing that exists is what fucking ever" is my real worst. I think it is foolish.

But All The Pretty Horses just destroyed me. I cried the entire, entire way through. I was just about to go to university and there were all these sort of strange things happening, and horrible breakups and just about everything I did made me feel like I was making some kind of terrible mistake, and there was something about that book that made me feel like it had been written specifically to freak me out. I loved it so much. But I'm scared to read it again, because either I won't love it as much as I did, or else it'll make me feel all weird and sad and doomed again. I could never objectively sort of evaluate how good that book is, because it's so tied to this very tormented time in my little life.

James said his was 100 years of solitude, and painted this quite terrifying picture of him lying in a dark room reading it and becoming just unable to get out of bed for days. And then he told a great Bob story, which is probably not true, but I don't care. I love Bob so much. Basically, Bob hadn't had an acting job in like a million years, and it was winter, and he was tired and poor and had a cold, and was lying in bed reading The Count Of Monte Cristo, and was too Drained to even sit up in bed to turn the pages properly, so he just tore out each page of the book after he'd finished reading it. Just sort of lying in the semi-dark covered with pages torn from a book about revenge. Best ever.

This does sound like bullshit until I remember that my own mum once cut a John Irving book in half because it was too heavy for her little arms to lift while she was lying in bed.

According to this 1950's etiquette guide I found, a hilarious Parlour Game is asking people to name famous Belgians.

The point of the game is that there aren't any. I have:
King Leopold
Tintin

Which is not a great list is it. It's not really much of a game, either. That kind of game is quite fun though, like where you ask people to name all the famous Scottish people they can think of, or the most famous birds, or whatever. I was walking back from getting coffee just now, and thinking about all the celebrity horses I could name. I had:

Seabiscuit
Red Rum
Secretariat
that horse of the Aga Khan's that got kidnapped
Alexander The Great's horse
Dick King's horse called Somerset

There are actually lots. It's a good game. If you play that game, and someone says Secretariat, then you can say, "Did you know that Secretariat's groom was called Eddie Sweat?", and then they can say, "Oh Gross."

It's true. That celebrity horse called Secretariat had a groom named "Eddie Sweat". He is the subject of a book called The Horse God Built: Secretariat, His Groom, Their Legacy.

I would actually LOVE to read this book. I know that I would read the whole thing in like a DAY.

I have a lot of Opinions

A terrible thing is when someone says something racist and then goes "ah WHAT I didn't realise that was racist what are you the thought police." Like of course they knew it was racist.
People are not that dumb; generally they know when they are being shitty and mean. Like I do sort of know, deep down, that it's a bit sexist and ageist of me to wish more than anything that everyone would stop making such a giant fucking deal about what a Total Babe Helen Mirren is. Like at the Oscars last year, or maybe the year before, or some other amount of years ago. It was my absolute worst. There were lots and lots of really extremely beautiful women there , with really seriously amazing dresses, and all anyone talked about was what a just complete sexpot and dreamboat Helen Mirren looked like. Lots of people going "Ah, and if there was an award for Most Beautiful, it would surely go to Helen Mirren." No it would NOT that is PRETEND.

I don't get it. She is quite pretty, it's true, but WHY must everyone keep insisting that, all evidence to the contrary, she is the steamiest woman alive. Why must they do it why why why why it drives me mental.
and every interview with her ever mentions the Naughty Glint in her eye and her frank approach to sexuality. It's so kitsch that she has become the sort of figurehead for that thing called There Is Still Life After Sixty.
Like of COURSE there's still life after sixty, for god's sake. It sucks that anyone ever needs to be "reminded" of that or whatever, because it should go without saying ,but I do understand that there is a need to make a thing out of it, sometimes. It is true that we live in an age-obsessed society with a very rigid idea of what constitutes beauty etc etc etc. OF COURSE THAT IS TRUE. and of course that is shit, and it needs to change. HOWEVER. I don't think the way to effect that change is to insist that what every red-blooded man desperately wants is to sleep with Helen Mirren. I do not think it is the case that every man's secret fantasy is to have Helen Mirren's horrible old lizard eyes staring at them in the dark.
It's not the worst thing in the world, obviously, but it is starting to drive me right up the wall.

Today on the train this violinist started talking to me

He said, "Oh, your computer is really small."
I said, "Yes."
He said, "oooooh, can I lift it?"
Which I thought was a bit strange, but not horrible or weird or anything, so I gave him my laptop to lift up and down a few times. Then he asked me whether I was from South Africa, and I said yes, and then he said something undecipherable in what he must have thought was Afrikaans, and then he asked me whether I was from "Durvin", and I said yes (I didn't want to get into it. It's terrible to correct people).
And THEN he said "oooooh, I know Durvin, we were the first orchestra to play in the city hall after the fall of apartheid." And I wondered if that was a thing now, calling it "the fall of apartheid". It sounds a bit sort of off, I don't know why. And then he told me he was with the London Philharmonic and that he played the violin and the whole time I was going oh wow oh wow this is so dreamy getting chatted up on the train by a violinist while wearing Penny's amazing coat she lent me and all with the wintry sun shining on our faces and the red leaves flashing past the windows etc etc I am in a MOVIE. So I was feeling most tremendously pleased with myself and with life in general, and we were talking nicely, and then I asked him what was his best city to play in. And he said "South Korea. Their hotels are excellent."
Which I thought was just the worst answer anyone could ever have possibly given to that question, ever. There was a thing in the paper the other day where someone described Philip Larkin as having "something of the old bag in him". That is the most old bag answer I can ever imagine. It's terrible to be a fully grown person who is obsessed with their comfort and getting their hideous old three meals a day like that.It's very old-baggish and gross. I was extremely disappointed.

Oh FINALLY

The baby is here! Isaac Quin-Walker. He is very very beautiful and very very new. He has fluffy ears, which is apparently a thing that babies have when they are born, and long fingernails, so he has to wear little mittens until Mae gets a chance to cut them. Obviously this is the best thing ever. He also has: lovely long racehorse legs (Mae's)
dimples (Mae's)
a sense of the ridiculous (Dan's)*
nice big bobbly eyes (Both of theirs)

*you can just tell

Mae is incredibly happy and incredibly tired and totally appalled by what a nightmare the labour was. I sort of expected her to be somehow different, now that she is a Mother, but really she is just the same except with a lovely baby next to her. They look very normal and right together. So do him and Dan. I watched Dan attempt to change his first nappy yesterday, which was very gross. Isaac had a Resigned Expression on his face the whole time. He really is unbelievably sweet and small and my best, and I'm so excited to be his godmother.

I really hate everything about this picture

That sort of "Bawdy" stance is the absolute pits. Really it is my worst. So terrible and whimsical and Frankly Sexual. All with those meaty calves also. The only other person I know in the world who this would make any sense to at all is my dad. I was reading the paper just now and I saw this picture and wished and wished that my dad was here so I could show it to him and go oh GOD, I HATE this. And then he could go YES ME ALSO.

I can't remember where I read this*, but there is a Rule which says that before you submit any piece of writing, you have to read the whole thing out loud in a stupid voice and see if it can stand up to that kind of abuse. If it can't, then you have to go back and start again. My mum just sent me this essay I wrote in my Honours year, which I am probably going to have to resubmit as part of my Master's application, and I have spent the morning reading it to myself in my stupidest voice and I just want to SCREAM. What was wrong with me that I was so smug? And why didn't anyone TELL ME. This is like when you look in the mirror HOURS after you have eaten your dinner and there is a HUGE piece of pepper between your front teeth and you have been talking and talking and talking and then you hate everyone for not telling you.


* I wish I did

This story is one of my bests

https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/ro/www/LiteratureandMedicineInitiative/20080304/bullet.pdf

Speaking of can-carrying invisible pals

James has this flatmate called Bob, who I struggle to believe in. Even though I know he is a real man*, there is something about him that sounds extremely made up. "The fictional-sounding Bob Surname". Bob is a struggling actor who has had sex with over a million women. He is in his early thirties. He is quite sort of vehement and passionate. "The grievance-nursing Bob Surname."**
This is all I know of Bob, and it is quite enough for me to know that a) he is amazing, and b) I never ever want to meet him because it will be a huge letdown.

* Reasons I know this:
1. James is not insane
2. Dan has seen him

** Reason I know this: Sometimes Dan will mention an actor that they both know, or someone they were at drama school with or something, and James will go "ooooooh, Bob hates him. He just hates him."

A few weeks ago in the observer there was this interview with the woman who writes those Charlie and Lola books. The books seem nice and funny, and so does she. I've never looked at any of them, but apparently one of the main things in them is that the little sister, Lola, has an imaginary best friend called Soren Lorenson. The writer of the article referred to him (the imaginary best friend) as "the can-carrying Soren Lorenson", which I just LOVED. I don't know what it is about it. There was an article this morning about Phillip Larkin's letters to his bizarre girlfriend, referred to as "the cricket-loving Monica Jones". "The can-carrying Monica Jones". What is it what is it why do I love it so MUCH.

It's something about them being defined by this slightly odd activity. That Soren Lorenson article was in the paper about three weeks ago, and it's been stuck in my head ever since, really. What I am thinking about when I am thinking about nothing is "the can-carrying Soren Lorenson". It's not necessarily easy or fun or Worthy or anything to try and work out why stuff gets stuck in your head, especially when the answer is inescapably "because you are a bit strange". But it doesn't matter, because walking around the house thinking "the cricket-loving Monica Jones" over and over and LAUGHING makes it worth it.

"Chortling" is TERRIBLE also

Actually, lots of words for laughing.
Snickering
Chortling
Chuckling

I would never be able to be real best pals with someone who used any of those words in Polite Conversation.

I don't mind "guffawing" though. And yesterday James said, "You know I can hear you both cackling from the street", to me and Mae, and I didn't mind that.

Lots of Kingsley Amis is just him figuring out different ways to say that he was wriggling around in embarassment and/or disgust and/or shame

I really like it. Two words that make me feel like I am in a play where the stage directions are, "Look like Kingsley Amis being a bit put off by something he has seen and/or read" are:

snickering
whilst

They are two of my real worsts.

There haven't been any pictures for ages

So here is me looking cross in Bristol. Sneering, almost. Or at least frowning very hard indeed. I don't remember being ratty once this day. I probably was though. One year for my birthday Caitie gave me this notebook with a picture of a small frowning person wearing a red hood on it. She said, "I got this because it looks exactly like you." And she actually was right. A number of people not normally given to those sorts of observations have picked up that notebook over the years and gone, "But this is you." It's terrible to just have a grumpy face. It means you'll age very badly. All that stuff about Getting The Face You Deserve and that.

Fizzy is getting a cat next week and I think she is going to name it after Boris Johnson

That is a much better name for a duck, I would say. Boris Johnson is almost the least feline politician I could ever imagine.
But this is a good game. Like obviously if you had a sad old dog that had been in a hunting accident and was consequently slightly blind and Fierce, but mostly sad and irritating, you would name it after Gordon Brown.
David Cameron: A big fit Guinea pig. Or a thin seal.
Saying you would name your supercilious terrier after Tony Blair is too easy, but it's only easy because it's true.
If you had a muscly little horse with spots on you would name it after Hilary Clinton.
I'm going to be thinking about this all day.

Caitie just reminded me that once I thought I saw a famous man at university, but it turned out to be just my politics lecturer.

I followed him around for a bit because I thought he had recently starred in a movie with Denzel Washington. But then I worked it out. It's because I didn't go to very many lectures. It's because I was in first year and I was so drunk all the time.

Yesterday I felt like I was in a Dr Seuss book called Rosie Loves To Smoke

Like how in Green Eggs and Ham where the one who is not Sam I Am says that he won't eat them on a house or a car or a tree or a train or in a box or with a goat or a mouse or a fox. Everything he sees and does is filtered through a lens called "I Won't Eat Green Eggs And Ham Here." That's how I felt yesterday. Everything I saw and did was just filtered through a lens called "Oh Great Here Is Yet Another Place Where I Cannot Smoke". Of course I am glad I quit smoking, but still I miss it A MILLION. My inner monologue yesterday went: Oh great I can't smoke outside St Pauls, or the Tate, or on the bridge, or with James, or with Simon, or at Beth's, or on the station platform, or outside my window, or fucking ANYWHERE. Quitting smoking has been an actual definitive experience for me. I've obviously led a very sheltered life, if I feel like the fact that I stopped smoking is something that sums me up as a person. But really I do a bit feel like that. Yesterday I thought about how much gum I must have chewed in the last year and got thoroughly nauseated.

Yesterday I went to the Gaugin exhibition and saw someone who I thought was famous

I saw him and went oh oh there is a famous man where is he from where is he from where is he from. He was walking round the exhibition with someone he obviously didn't know very well*. I wouldn't definitely say they were on a date, but they probably were. An exhibition seems like an extraordinarily High Pressure environment to choose for like a first or second date. The worst is having to stand in front of paintings and say things. It's even terrible when it's with someone you know well. The potential for being either incredibly bored or incredibly boring is generally too high.
ANYWAY.
I stared and stared at him and wondered where he was from, and convinced myself that he was extremely famous, and went on about it for ages, and then on the train home I realised that he was the actor who played Brooke Shields's husband on that show called Lipstick Jungle. I can't BELIEVE I remembered that. I can't BELIEVE I worked that out. I can't BELIEVE that some probably very crucial information was turfed out of my brain in order to make room for that. If I was writing a letter now, I would end it by saying
"And meanwhile it dawns on me by degrees that anyone who has ever accused me of caring too much about frivolous NONSENSE was only speaking the truth.
Yours as ever,
Rosie"


* For example: he didn't know that she spoke Spanish, or that she had a brother, or that she had never been to Florence.**
** I know this because I was SPYING.

Here are three questions I asked Simon today

1. Do you ever think "I wish I was jewish"?*
2. Do you ever think "if I was a dog I would just bite everyone's legs all the time"?**
3. Do you ever see something very weird or hear something very weird, and instead of going "that's weird", do you ever think "oh GREAT, I've had a STROKE"?***



* This is because last night Em said she liked Ed Miliband because he was the child of Jewish immigrants.
** This is because I saw a horrible dog scrabbling frantically the wrong way up the escalator last night, and I sort of wriggled past it with my legs TINGLING because they were so sure they were going to be bitten.
*** This is because yesterday I saw this little boy with a fox's head walk past me, and I thought Oh God This Is It. But really it was only a little boy with a horrifically realistic fox mask on.