Friends or footstools?

Lately I have been spending what I guarantee you to be  an inexcusable amount of time contemplating what I suppose is the folly of a modern marriage but then again, all marriage regardless is folly. That I engage in this the highest of intellectual pursuits largely on my employers’ time should quite obviously be cause for alarm but that is only until one considers that if I were ever to present a paternity leave form for approval, then certainly a great deal of thought would have preceded the filling of it. Anyway, the institution that is a modern marriage now holds what can only be described as a morbid fascination for me ever since I took up wearing rose-coloured glasses to enhance my imagination as one half of a happy couple. Marriage to me is a little too much like buying an 11 year old boy a chemistry set and then sitting back to see just what  happens. In my case, the boy is Crompton’s William and the chemistry set of a variety that contains the necessary ingredients for the  manufacture of nitroglycerine in large quantities.

Take 2 people, preferably of opposing sexes, as alike as kindergarten chalk & a well-ripened Camembert. They hardly know each other as well as they ought to and in a fit of absolute lunacy clouded by clumsy passion, proceed to fool first of all themselves and then the rest of us into believing that they are going to make it to their 40’s without inflicting grievous bodily harm, bankrupting or generally pissing on each other on the way. “Those  2? PAH! They  stand about as much chance as a butterscotch sundae in the bowels of hell’s infernal forge. We’d be better off backing a 3-legged rocking horse at Ascot”. Sometimes however, poor old broken-down Pollyana her legs bound together with lashings of epoxy glue and masking tape does go on to occasionally take the cup.

Some of my friends are married; invariably to women of whom much is expected, perhaps more than is human…………………..or prudent to give. The  women, turned wives whom I have had the privilege or misfortune if you like, to observe fall broadly into two categories; the charming, witty ones who make for delightful, if challenging companions and the dreary ones whose dim view of marriage likens it to a chore that one must dispense with all the grim efficiency of a German stationmaster armed with a large bar of carbolic soap.

How Dull.

There’s a third, hidden category …….the  shrews, but that is a can of worms for another day.  Do put away your silly placards and constitutional court summonses O Ye guardians of all virtues feminine. Yes, I am perfectly aware that my own mother and sister are in fact, women but this is a discourse on personality and that is where objectivity flies out of the window. Save the slogans for a cause that counts.

I digress. Right, where was I? Ah yes, friends and footstools. The tragedy for some women is to get caught somewhere in between……….forever in the transit lounge between a warm embrace and a lip curled in distaste. It’s all quite confusing really. Some men make an art out of keeping the women in their lives seesawing helplessly in the playground of their affections. Until inevitably, she falls off and with all the fury of Congreve’s scorned woman (which hell hath not)……..proceeds to eviscerate him, preferably with a firearm.

Audiophile: Asa – Subway
Off my shelf: A woman of no importance – Oscar Wilde
Midday Matinee: No country for old men (2007)
Starring: Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Woody Harrelson and Kelly Preston
Directed by: Joel Cohen, Ethan Cohen

Who’s your daddy?

The world is changing perhaps much faster than one can keep up. Growing up, I remember the victorian outrage that inevitatbly accompanied the prospect of any young lady (a somewhat loose term there) that was expecting a child out of wedlock.  I suppose the cause of the indignation wasn’t just the issue of a ‘fatherless’ child (or bastard if you will) but rather the irrefuatble evidence of ‘damage’ to the lady’s virtue. Fertile imaginations aren’t neccesary to guess at the goings-on in the subjects free time. Interestingly, the ‘gentleman’ responsible would be at best an afterthought or at worst conspiciously absent from the collective psyche of the affronted. 

Hypocrites.

These days the chap’s role in these affairs has diminished, single-moms are less of a taboo subject and that, I suppose is good news all round. Except maybe for the children growing up in a single-parent environment. But then I guess, it’s better than growing up in an abusive household with both parents are there, sets a bad example you see. 

Bloody hell, everything’s a mess these days.

Audiophile: Asa – Fire on the Mountain
Off my shelf: Ivanhoe – Sir Walter Scott
Midday Matinee: The Good Shepherd  [2006]
Starring: Matt Damon, Alec Baldwin, Robert DeNiro, Angelina Jolie, Tammy Blanchard, Joe Pesci, Billy Crudup and Michael Gambon
Directed by: Robert DeNiro

Daisy Chainsaws

The dating circuit’s a funny place. Full of anxiety, bravado, hope, despair, ill-feigned indifference and unconvincing nonchalance.  Getting older doesn’t help nor does leaving it for a while then returning once a relationship fails.

Aside: Is there a nicer word for what we have with the ones we love other than ‘relationship’? It just seems so………..dry and impersonal a word for something’s that’s so intimate and sticky and messy and warm and painful. Relationship: That’s a word that’s usually followed by ‘Manager’ or ‘Officer’ as printed on business cards or engraved on plaques in office doors at my local bank, PR, Marketing, Audit, Insurance firm whatever……..Maybe  it’s because most of us have found relationships to be that last thing – Painful; that we have chosen to distance ourselves and seek sensory deprivation by hiding behind innocuous words to describe what we feel most.

Anyway in the dating circuit,  a somewhat interesting sequence of events usually takes place. I like someone who doesn’t like me back in that way but instead likes someone who in turn likes someone else ad nauseum. So in the end we are all probably chasing people who are running not from us, but after someone else.

Nice place to play musical chairs.

Every once in a while one gets tired of running and allows themselves to get caught and looks on wistfully as the object of one’s affections gets ever further away. The cries of delight from whoever has managed to catch you go unheard. Sometimes the one you want gets tired of running and we convince ourselves that  ‘they have seen the light’ as it were deaf to the disquieting voice that whispers that you are only second-best.

Sometimes an old flame returns too late to light your fire.

Then again, sometimes maybe two people who genuinely like each other, switch off their search radar and at point-blank range, fire cupid’s arrow at each other.

Audiophile: Django Reinhart – Peche a la Mouche (Bruxelles to Paris:1947-1953)
Off my shelf: DK2 Vol.2 – Frank Miller, Lynn Varley
Midday Matinee: Fight Club (1999)
Starring: Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter & Meatloaf
Directed by: David Fincher

I’ll have my Kate……….and Edith too.

I have always been fascinated by the seven deadly sins. Somebody must’ve thought long and hard about those; I mean, there’s one relevant to every little indiscretion and major cock-up imaginable. The things are like a straitjacket, you cannot get away from them.

Lust is my favourite in the traditional sense, one does have a whale of a time racking up a rap sheet on this sin but I suppose lust as a sin transcends desire of the flesh. The Aston Martin DB9, an Omega wristwatch, Kahlua, deep fried prawns, the Macbook pro and lots of other things could get you in trouble just as quick.  Lust is the DNA for all sin.

Greed on the other hand, is the most complex of the deadly sins. I suppose it is pardonable to lust after beautiful things. The creators of them would be very upset if we didn’t. If a man doesn’t get whiplash from turning to stare at a gorgeous woman then he should probably be  struck by lightning. Painters should burn their masterpieces, photographers smash your cameras, Steve Jobs takes a vacation and Celine Dion would quit singing (hmm…that might actually be not so bad). Greed is lust on steroids. Wanting more than one needs is where the line gets razor-thin. In a black & white world knowing one’s wants from one’s needs opens a technicolour world of grey. The debate on individual appetites alone is interminable and the one on separating needs from wants is as diverse as there are people in this world.

I suppose then that the quest for the perfect partner would fall rather neatly into the debate. Is finding your soul mate a want or  a need? My soul mate has to be many things. If I got started on a list here, greed alone would make it very long for I’d want her to be good at everything but we know that’s not possible. So, how about spreading the composite of a soul mate among several different candidates? Brainy-girl and Booty-girl won’t have to come in the same package. Someone else can cook and another do the laundry. There can be the girl with whom one goes to museums with and another for picnics, another who’s a great listener and  one more whose yummy voice you could listen to all day (maybe). One  whose problems you’ll always want to solve and one to whom you’ll run to when in deep shit.

Herein lies the rub; What’s sauce for the Goose…… ahem excuse me, Gander in this case, is certainly sauce for the Goose. I suppose a lady’s list on the qualities of Mr. Right would have as many items as the number on her bra size and I couldn’t possibly blame her; men need a lot of work before they are even palatable let alone gourmet fare. Trouble is, I don’t think I could handle the competition. Ideally I’d want to be the  ‘O’ guy when she goes, “Oh God!” but what if I turn out to be  a ‘men-are-pigs-I-need-to-knee-one-in-the-balls’ guy for most women? Perhaps only the spectre of assault charges is all that’s restraining them at the moment. Life would indeed be nasty, brutish and short.

Decisions, decisions.

Audiophile: The Who – Baba O’Riley
Off my shelf: The Kouga Ninja Scrolls – Futaro Yamada
Midday Matinee: Cicade de Deus (City of God)  (2002)
Starring: Alexandre Rodrigues, Leandro Firmino, Phellipe Hargensen
Directed by: Fernando Mierelles, Katia Lund

Teenage Pensioner

Friday

She wants to go dancing tonight but I’m not up for it.

These days I don’t seem to be up for much; TV remote, bag of chips, comfy pillow, a duvet and Robert’s your father’s brother. She says I’m ‘old’ and (yikes!) boring, which is the way I feel sometimes. I’m really trying to figure out why I’m feeling so disaffected by the entire concept of Joie de’ vivre, especially when she’s so full of boundless energy……….hmmmm…..(maybe she’s wearing you out is the obvious answer). No, that’s not it. Even when I’m bouncing off the walls I don’t want to do those things I consider to be passe for a Friday/ Saturday night.

(sigh) Maaaaybe I AM getting along a bit. Then again, I do tend to get bored rather easily, I’ll give tripping the light fantastic a try and that way know for sure if it’s time to punch out of the party scene.

Monday

You don’t even want to know what happened, trust me.