Advocacy, witches, and breadsticks — oh my!
Monday, May 30, 2005 , 7:27 PM
I’m just home from being out, and am eating breadsticks and hummus. This was the last tub of hummus and it didn’t have the packaging with the barcode on it, so the nice lady at the grocery store rang it through as a 20p newspaper for me. Tasty paper.
I was out this evening with Ros from Powerful Partnerships to meet someone to see if I might be suitable as a “citizens’ advocacy” partner for him. We met with this young man and his key-worker at the home where he stays. Normally Ros would call him back in a few days to get his thoughts on having me as his advocate, and he would say yes or no. Well, I’m dead chuffed: he said a determined “Yes” before we’d even left. I won’t be saying much more about it here, out of respect for his privacy. Suffice it to say that I really liked this guy, and am keen to be friends with him. Hopefully I can be useful, too.
The idea of citizens’ advocacy, as it’s been explained to me, is to be there as a friend to people whose daily social world is made up largely of people who are paid to deal with them, who are answerable to organisations, boards, and social work plans. Symptomatic descriptions describe a reality that it’s naive to ignore, but they also create a prison of limited expectations. And the urge to protect more vulnerable members of society is a good one, but not when it precludes an individual’s right to learn and grow by taking good risks. An advocate is ultimately answerable to no one but their partner, and is there just to help give voice to someone’s wants in life.
I was nervous about this situation because there’s so much I don’t know. I’m sure the situation will have complexities to it that I don’t yet see. But now that I’ve met an actual person, all I feel is that I’ve made a new friend. I’m someone who gets excited about potential, and here’s someone who’s specifically asked for help in making his ideas real. It’s compelling. I was just expected to be a “short-term” advocate here, but I don’t feel the need for that limiter on things now.
~
This weekend, Dan and Babs, the owners and co-founders of The Strategic Coach — the company I write for — came to visit me. They regularly travel to London, but this time took a detour up here to see me. Quite an honour, coming from two people whose presence is in such demand.
I was nervous: I’d had friends visit before, but they were all family or my peers. This couple is ludicrously successful — what would a couple of millionaires want to do in Edinburgh? I’ve got no experience of this!
From the moment they stepped off the train and I saw them, I knew my worries were unfounded. The three days we spent together were a joy: these people are my good friends. I’d always taken the tack of treating them as such, rather than being weird or obsequious with them because they don’t require that of their team (or particularly like it in people), but hanging out together, walking through the Old Town, talking about everything under the sun, was a nice, relaxed experience I’d not had with them before. I didn’t have to share them.
In the past, we’ve had differences of opinion on things, particularly when it comes to politics. But — maybe because of the Zen thinking I’ve been doing — I found I had no position I needed to defend. The talk was just talk, and there was nothing to refute or contest, just ideas to play with — for that’s all talk is.
They treated me royally, too, which I appreciated. I finally got to go to places I’d only looked at from the outside, like the Balmoral Hotel and The Witcheryrestaurant. We also went to Plaisir du Chocolat, which I’d never been into, since I think of myself as someone who doesn’t like chocolate. But I drank a cup of oily, rich, luscious hot chocolate, and I tasted a sweet curried pea soup Dan and Babs both ordered, and — well, no, that didn’t hook me. What did was the environment, which is a lush Art Nouveau tearoom that Proust would have felt at home in. I admit it: I’m a writer who enjoys the trappings and romances of his profession, so I’ll definitely be going back there.
~
So that’s what I’ve been up to. I’m still sleepy from being awake most of the night two nights ago: I never drink coffee, but having a cup after supper at a fancy restaurant seemed like the thing to do. Bad idea. I’m not used to the stuff. I’ll grab a book shortly and head to bed.
Night night.
AARGH! Rice!
Thursday, May 26, 2005 , 4:47 PM
The ScotMid had no boil-in-the-bag rice, so I had to buy real-rice. I’m about to sit down to my tea. Fingers crossed, but it looks a bit undercooked (the choice seemed to be between that, burnt, or soupy).
And yet…
I don’t want anyone to try to tell me how to make rice, just as I don’t want anyone to show me how to play pool, or how to juggle.
Low-pressure system.
, 3:28 PM
At the beginning of the week, my two best mates, both here and abroad, presented me with some heaviness that’s going on in their lives. There was nothing I could do for either of them, and I felt a bit sucked in. And now here’s me with that last post, going back, exhuming old stuff I thought wasn’t an issue anymore.
The other night I was walking home, and the air was cold and damp, like it had come off the sea — the Firth of Forth, which I could see if I followed the line of Easter Road all the way forward. The next day, it was sunny and hot. It’s so changeable, inconstant right now.
Maybe there’s something planetary or weather-wise going on that’s affecting us. It really does feel that random and external.
Cosgrove just said something cool to me on MSN about sharing the load of personal crap with friends: “All you want sometimes is to have someone listen and really understand, or just empathize and not try to tell you ‘It’s nothing’ but get that it (what you’re feeling) is somethingeven if it (what’s going on) is empirically nothing.”
I like that.
Lots of questions.
, 1:37 PM
Why is “So how’s your love-life?” an open topic for conversation? I don’t have a love-life, I just shag people.
Next question.
~
I haven’t been blogging, I know. I’ve been having distant thoughts like thunder on the horizon, but they won’t come in. There’s no rain.
I think I’m pregnant: There’s a new book stirring in my belly. I know nothing about it yet, but I have a feeling it’s going to be a difficult delivery — not the process, which I’m well familiar and comfortable with, but the subject matter and the depth of it. Each book digs a little deeper into my backyard, and with this being the fourth one, some stuff is going to get uncovered.
There are some themes going around my head lately.
One of them is the idea of passion versus balance. Star Wars of all things made me aware that I’d been thinking about this. I’ve been doing lots of thinking and work about centering, disidentifying from the stories and thoughts blowing through my life, and getting to a really nice, still place. The challenge with this, though, is that you can do that to a point where you’re unmoved byanything. There’s a level of disconnection that’s dangerous.
I suppose awareness practice doesn’t ask for disconnection at all, but rather full participation, complete presence. Still, there’s a bliss in being free from the trashiness of daily dramas that’s seductive.
But art is driven by passion. You have to be out there in the mud and grass, rolling on the concrete, to have any ideas or even to be bothered creating something. Is all art reaction?
Ugh. This feels a bit like when I left acting, ’cause I was sick of having to become these troubled people for a living. If my life gets too settled and comfortable, though, I’ll have nothing to say, no experiences to reflect or report on. I feel like this next book isn’t really going to happen until I let go, indulge my passion, and get involved in… things. I just don’t know what those things are at the moment.
This doesn’t mean I subscribed to the f*ed up artist school of thought. Personal torment and creative ability are not the same thing. It’s boring to watch people indulge themselves or try to sanctify their victimhood. Drama, as I’ve said elsewhere, is for people avoiding the responsibility of creating something better.
~
A few nights ago, a new friend invited me out to theEdinburgh Rush festival. It was exactly what I needed, to get out of the house and go to an arts event. I had one particularly good talk with a singer/songwriter named Chris Brown. Blethering about the creative process — telling someone about how I write a book, hearing how he creates a song — got me excited about the possibilities of it at a time when I’ve just been sliding, hibernating, composting. Even better was that when he got up to sing he was really good!
~
I’ve been reading some delicious writing. The other night I read a story by Salman Rushdie from a great fundraising anthology called Telling Tales. It was such an imaginative treat, and I received it like an invitation: Here was exactly the kind of story I like to write, imaginative without apology, descriptive and evocative — realising all the possibilities of magical realism.
~
Another theme that keeps coming up is child abuse. Yeah, no fun. Last night I was reading an article about the prominent and much-admired Internet lawyer Larry Lessig’s taking on a sexual abuse case against the boy-choir school he went to. In doing so, he had to confront the fact that he’d been abused there, too.
I was reading this while waiting for Geoff, as we were going to see a movie called Mysterious Skin, which was about… sexual abuse.
This wasn’t part of my experience at all, thank God. At the same time, though, I think back to my childhood, and it feels like the crime was there without a culprit. I was a very young child when I became aware that I was different, and I knew somehow that a lot of people would hate me for that difference, even though I have no memory of the topic ever being discussed around me. My parents were certainly as liberal as was possible: Dad was a parole officer, standing up for people that general society had no use for.
But there was something bad about me, and my thoughts and feelings were a constant stream of wrongs I had to hide. I’ve had very few direct experiences of that external hatred, but man did I do well at taking the job on myself as a boy. I had an ideal childhood, but I always felt a bit intense, a bit preoccupied, a bit scared of being found out, and a bit unhappy because of it. Big surprise that I was suicidal several years later, that I’ve lost someone to this same whirlpool of self-hatred, and that my “community” is so hell-bent on self-destruction.
I get so bored of “gay this” and “gay that” when I don’t believe there is such a thing as “gay”. And yet, when I read and see these things, it feels familiar, and it hurts. I’ve tried hard so far to produce work that’s not about that. There are so many other stories, and what effect the past has is completely up to each of us. But maybe I’m fooling myself if I think I can ignore this theme in my work and my life.
I feel like I should cut this whole entry. Blyeech — more therapeutic barf on the Internet. But what’s the instinct to censor, except more apology and embarrassment about my experience.
I’m going to have to write a bunch of happy, clever, funny posts in succession to bump this one off the front page.
Room for one.
Tuesday, May 10, 2005 , 6:24 PM
My friend Sheila came over last night to finish up the last of the ‘zine printing. I’m embarrassed to have people over, because I know that I’m such a bachelor. For instance, she pointed out as we were talking that I was ‘dusting’ the shelf under the coffee table with my sock. Oops.
I do, however, like to cook. Right now, I’ve got a mullagatawny soup on the boil that I think is going to be damned good. I just can’t cook when someone’s watching. I get all self-conscious in my tiny kitchen and drop things. Same thing with typing: I can’t do it when someone’s watching, and my fignres strat splipnig…
Bit strange in someone who used to act and sing in front of crowds of people.
~
My scented geranium, which Patrick and Anita gave me, has sprouted tiny flowers. I think it’s a faint, obsequious little show in a vain attempt to keep me from killing it. Patrick showed me this trick with plants called “watering”, and I think it likes it. I don’t want it to get too comfortable, though. Bachelors aren’t big on commitment, even to the insentient.
In bloom.
Friday, May 06, 2005 , 1:11 PM
The cherry blossoms are out in Edinburgh. They sworl around my feet, or fall from trees like I’m in a queer ticker-tape parade. They celebrate nothing at all, except being.
~
Last Saturday was Beltane. I went up Calton Hill at night with my good friends, got rat-arse drunk on tequila and tonic, and watched the procession of painted-up nakedy people and fire take us into the new season.
I also saw Casablanca. I’d never seen it before. Growing up, I never liked black and white movies because they were always full of talking and mush. I guess I like that now. In fact, that’s what I appreciated most: The dialogue. It was like a hold-over from theatre. Everything a character says is a clever quip, and moves the plot forward. There’s something to be said for that, for art to be heightened, not just a copy of life but an improvement on it.
~
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p>It occurred to me last night that I’ve now officially been in Edinburgh four years.
