Maria Roberts's Blog, page 3

The New Generation

I'm feeling clear-headed about writing again, which is due to living alone. This morning I woke up thinking of all the things I wanted to do, but was struck by the tiny fear of doing it - writing is quite a scary business - I've been thinking more and more about eBooks. About how publishers (sorry publishers) want certain books to fit certain genres, and how there are so many ways to do something different, that for a writer it's a really exciting time; we can do whatever we want to do.

I walked into Teenboy's room, he was online gaming and having a chat on facebook at the same time.

'A girl I met at PGL is reading your book,' he said.

He went on this trip years ago.

'How does she know it's my book? Did you tell her before she bought it?'
'No, she just told me now she that she's reading Single Mother on the Verge on her iPad, her mum bought it.'
'Where does she live?'
'In a little village somewhere.'
'It's a bit weird,' he said.

It'll weirder, I thought, when she gets to the sex scenes.

But then I did think it was a little sign; a teenager is reading my book on an iPad, in a village somewhere – I never thought that would happen.

Food for thought

 An oily birdThis evening I was sitting at the dinner table with Jack, I was in my pyjamas being ill, and our friend Dillon was over eating our beef stew. Dillon's going through a few difficulties at the moment and so I thought I'd make him feel better by talking about mine.

'It's not about you,' he screeched. 'It's about me.'

His worries are severe health problems, mine are minor social inconveniences.

'What you don't realise,' I said, 'is that I turn 34 this year, and the last time I had a boyfriend I was 31. That's just...'

'Well, that's not exactly true is it?' said Dillon, raising his eyebrows at me.

'It sort of is,' I said. 'I was at that event last week...'

(It was an award ceremony in Sweden. I have a new job that propels me into a completely different world to the one I inhabit. I ate pheasant, sipped just a tiny bit of Chablis – as I'm living sans alcohol – and watched the King and Queen of Sweden loaf down the stairs, twenty minutes late for dinner.)

'...and I was sitting next to two really old men, and even they weren't interested in me. And there I was thinking: widen the scope: young, old, half-animal-half-human, anything will do.'

'Your problem,' said Dillon. 'Is that you've stopped drinking.'

'So you'd date a minotaur?' asked Jack.

'I suppose so,' I replied.

'Or an upside down merman with a tail for a head, and a head for feet?'

'Yes, I don't see why not. Anyway,' I continued, looking at Dillon. 'It turns out even the coffin dodgers aren't interested in me because there was this 50-year-old woman across the way and they wanted her.'

'My friend's granddad is getting married to a 30-year-old,' said Jack. 'And he's 74.'

'Why didn't you introduce me to him?'

'Even she's younger than you,' he said. 'Look Mum, you've got to think of it like the BP oil crisis. Once BP had loads of money and loads of oil, and people were offering them more on the table, and they were like "no, we have loads of money and oil" and then all the oil poured into the sea, disappeared and they had none, and now no one will give them more oil or money – or it's like when apple's stocks and shares plummeted in the 80s... well, that's what you're going through now.'

'So, I'm like an oil slick?'

'Yes, you're like BP. You had loads of offers, and now they've disappeared into the sea.'





  

The One in Which I'm an Evil Mother-f...

I absolutely mean this, I am trying so hard to be the best mum in the freaking universe but I'm faced with the challenge of a (definitely wonderful if you're reading this my darling son, Jack) 12 year-old, and I've raised him to HAVE a VOICE and an OPINION.

Oh, why did I do that? Why?

By the time Jack is fifteen, he'll be like Germaine Greer but with actual balls.

Yes, there are times when I look to the heavens and I pray:

Dear Lord,
(I'm going back to religion on a purely selfish basis; I'm simply asking for things I want. Like more patience.)

So I was in the car driving Jack back from his guitar lesson, before dropping him off at yet another sleepover.

'We'll have to collect some drinks and snacks. You can't turn up empty-handed.'

'There's only seven of us staying over.'

'Exactly, seven is a lot.'

Seven growing, hungry, rugby lads; how do you even begin to feed them? I think I'd just throw them out into the garden, snarling, starving, and hunting down the neighbourhood cats for dinner.

'Can we get some lager?'

'Er, no.'

'OK. Bitter then?'

'Er no! I thought we'd had this conversation: no alcohol until you are eighteen and you agreed? We are against alcohol.'

Asleep, in my PJs, again.'Yes, I was against alcohol. But that was until I discovered the real world.'

'I'm not getting you alcohol. That's it. I don't agree with underage drinking.'

I base this on real life experience because I've been hungover for twenty years, and well, look at the state of me.

We swiftly moved from this to that day's' events:

'So, how was school?'

'It was brilliant. Really good thanks. Jake in sixth form went to the shops, bought a copy of the Star and we all saw him gawping at Page Three. I said to him, Jake! So he took out *Page Three, folded it and walked around with it in his pocket the rest of the day.'

(*proper horrified)

Dear Lord, 

I pleaded out loud, as we drove through Stockport, and past McDonald's.

I really need you to help me with this...

'God, won't help you now,' laughed Jack. 'You've got a teenage boy.'

I groaned. Theoretically, in number only, Jack's not a teenager yet. However, he is growing a moustache and sports size nine feet. As Jack pointed out, some of his teachers are still struggling to grow a moustache. (I'll move onto my plans for Immac-ing at a later date).

'So Mum,' continued Jack. 'If you had three wishes, what would they be?'

'To get everything I ever wanted.' I realise this is a dangerous thing to ask for; because it would be a nightmare. In the short term, I want Channel 4 to commission my sitcom.

Then Jack launched into a massive in scope, long, and complicated speech about what he would do with his three wishes: in the meantime, I drove down a one way street the WRONG way, was verbally abused by an old man, and the car chuffed and clattered like it was going to explode.

Dear Lord,

I prayed again...

If you can't help me be a good mum, at least point the way to a petrol station...

The other day, we played tennis and I whooped Jack's ass.

Jack said: 'I couldn't concentrate because you keep loading me with all your stress about work and things-to-get-done-now!'

'Don't give me that,' I batted back. 'All families have things to do, and I've told you there's nothing to worry about.'

'Well, if it's not your stress you're loading onto me, then I bet you've got PMT.'

Grrrrrrrrr.......

Um, he's probably right.
















  

Healthy Distance

Jack has had a very busy day.

As he is getting older, (a few months until thirteen) his days become busier... and... well... to be honest mine just become quieter.

My stomach sinks as I write this, perhaps because I'm watching Sleepless in Seattle, a film about being alone whilst I too am alone. I swear to God, I am trying to have a life full of the whip, bang, zip but it's a Saturday night and well, here I am, writing at my laptop. So much for whip, bang, zip.

I can't just drop everything and go out. I can't make plans to go out just because I want to drink, there are other things to do like collect Jack from school, feed him, drop him off at a friend's and then collect him at nine (he used to be in bed at 6.30pm, once). Life's changing, and I'm still trying to figure out how to change with it.

Jack is involved in theatre at school; he loves it. He reminds me so much of how I used to be; always spinning in a globe of excitement because there were so many things to do. So much to see. And maybe when he was younger I could be everywhere and anywhere at once - because I was younger and less whacked - but also because it was so simple. He'd scurry off to my mother's with his little Spiderman case and I'd be... I don't know... in a bar. In another city. Working. Playing. Being busy. Having fun... meeting boys and doing stuff. Earning money. Making a living. Holding out for a dream. Being me.

I was so, alive. Yet, for the past few years, I've been existing.

And Jack, back then, well perhaps he was asleep, or perhaps he was thinking; "Why is she having all the fun?"

Now I know what it's like to be waiting in for him to come home; as he waits for me to finish whatever I'm doing and have time for him.

I think what's needed is some healthy distance.

He's OK. He can do healthy distance.

Me, I'm all, agh. Help.

Sex in your eyes = Love and Money?

I can't see the woods... there's no trees! I had a long chat with a chum yesterday afternoon. And for her, like me, it's all a bit ickly-pickly right now; what with WORK being hard to come by for much of the nation. And besides that we're both completely single; I suggested she get a boyfriend and move him in straight away to help pay the bills. But it's a bit chicken and egg: how to get a boyfriend when you haven't got a job...


And for me: how to get a boyfriend when you've been sleeping in the boxroom next to the toilet for almost a year.


I think we need to have 'sex in our eyes' and look game on, rather than, Oh fuck, game over.

As she rightly said, 'You never used to have problems.'

Well yes, that's because I had sex in my eyes back THEN. If only this whole thing could be worn like contact lenses, then I could say: "Excuse me for one moment,  I think the sex has fallen out of my eyes. I'll just pop the sex back in my eyes. Ah, now I can see.

You know when the sex has fallen out your eyes: Men don't walk past you on the street, they stride past you without even a tiny glance.

Hm less talk of no sex, more talk about no work and no money.


She's not the only bright star that is suffering; summer is not a good time for academics; the universities don't like to pay their bright young associate lecturers, and so many are left trying to find work in places like McDonald's over summer. It's even hard to find work in McDonald's; it's cheaper to hire a 16 year-old than a 30 something with a PhD and a social conscience to boot.


Perhaps a girl should forward plan, hunt for a boyfriend when she is in employment; but then I find that when I'm working, I focus all my energy on work. And I'm always working -- paid or unpaid. Don't give me any of this, 'we don't need men business'. It's true, we don't.

Well, er, for a few things we do. I once read that women who have regular orgasms are more successful.

Anyway, I don't think I've got the hang of all this "how to manage your life business." The older I get, the more complicated it seems. Bringing in the washing in heels, and catching the bus into town for a night out, just don't go hand-in-hand for me. I always fall arse over tit.

At a women's networking event the other week, I asked a financial whizz: 'How do  freelance women, who are managing creative careers, buy houses?' She replied: 'They get married.'

Ah, right.

Um... hang on a minute: I'm just going to do a quick Mori Maria survey. I'm going to quickly think of ten people: right, I've thought of them, and these are people (as might befit Royals) in my 'inner circle', who are in a situation:

1. a. struggling to find work; recent graduate
2. b. manager, approximately 20 years with one company - voluntary redundancy
3. c. super-great person, having hours and wage cut by 40%
4. d. enthusiastic and brilliant community worker; working all sorts of unfamilyfriendly hours for an agency
5. e. man under 60, recovering from cancer, considering selling home, as no work to be found; wedding jewellery sold
6. f. father of two, job switch, lesser pay
7. g. clever scientist mum looking for new job
8. h. clever art historian looking for job
9. i. person with a job, low pay
10 j. person with a job, contract coming to an end.

So, that's a bit bonkers.

The question might be:

Right now, how does anyone buy anything at all?

Under 16 and Pregnant

On the way to rowing club last night, I called in to visit a neighbour. As I entered the house, she was whispering with her teenage son in the kitchen.

"Don't tell her," he said.

They hung around the kitchen looking guilty. I wondered if it was because she was serving him a dinner of spare ribs without a side salad. A few weeks ago when I visited, he'd been eating spare ribs then too -- and I insisted that he eat salad or I would drag him to my house for lettuce soup.

BBQ spare ribs is his favourite meal: he's fourteen and he now has 5000 spare ribs inside him; enough to build a clone army from left over bones.

Her other boy, aged six, wandered to the freezer and began to rummage through the icepops.

"I know what it is," he laughed.

I looked at the older boy's dinner and thought, gosh I'm not that much of a food fascist -- eat the hot BBQ spare ribs before they go cold! Stop hiding your dinner!

The neighbour leaned over to the little one's ears, "Go on then," she said.

I saw her stifle a laugh; she mouthed to me, "He just said, 'the things that girls and boys do when they get close to one another.'"

Of course I was baffled. What's that? Fight?

"I'm going to tell her,' said my neighbour, 'She's the only one standing in the kitchen who doesn't know."

Then she mouthed in an exaggerated Les Dawson fashion that a girl at her son's school is pregnant. Seven months pregnant. It's thought she's been hiding it all this time.

"Ah," I said.

"You don't seem surprised," she said.

Maybe it's because I'm researching and writing on teenagers and sex, but, well, it's not that unusual is it?

Unfortunately, some young girls get caught out and they need help; hiding it under a jumper is no help at all.

This is why for Jack's sex education, we read the book 'Let's Talk About Sex" (AGH I screamed inside. LET'S NOT) and then some months after that we watched the film Juno and discussed personal responsibility At Great Length.

"These things happen," I said. Then I turned to her son. "Right," I continued. "Don't go making your mum a granny." I gave him the raised eyebrows. "And you do know, don't you, that you should be able to get free condoms from the school nurse! And, if a girl needs emergency contraception the school nurse should give it to her..."

"What's that? Medication?"

"Yes, a pill...the morning after pill," I called loudly across the kitchen. "If needs be, the nurse can even take the child off the school premises so that she can collect a prescription. And you needn't worry about school telling the parents because it's confidential."

"I've seen a door with school nurse on it," he said. "But I don't know if she is in there..."


I tell Jack not to have sex until he's over sixteen, as well as telling him the health stuff. Jack goes to an all boys school. And it's well known by all the boys that the school nurse hands out free condoms, because apparently some of the older boys have a stash that they've (optimistically) been collecting for years.

"Do you have lessons on contraception at school?" I shouted across the kitchen to her son. "Hm, it's a Catholic school isn't it...?"

Her Teenboy groaned, "See Mum, this is why I said don't tell HER...."

The Cupboard is Bare

Jack opened the fridge door at the weekend and swung unhappily from side to side. Then he opened and closed the drawers at the bottom of the fridge.

Working so fast in the kitchen, I blur. "There's nothing in here," he moaned. "We haven't got any food."
"I think you'll find we have got food."
"Nothing we can actually eat."

I joined him at the fridge door.

"Stop swinging," I said. "And look, there's your favourite yoghurt; Yeo Valley organic strawberry, and there's half a tub of cream cheese, some satsumas, some spring onion, milk, butter, a bit of asparagus, a couple of potatoes, and an onion, and over there... some apples in the fruit bowl."

I opened the freezer door, "And we've got some pork chops, a chicken, chicken livers, a huge leg of lamb, and some broccoli, some chives, lemon thyme, and mince meat."

Then I opened the cupboards, "A few tins of beans, loads of lentils, passata, rice, tuna, hot chocolate, pasta, flour..."

"Yes, but nothing I can actually eat. We haven't had crisps for months."

"These are all meals," I said, "you'll see."

I'm finding it really difficult to fill the fridge and keep it stocked. Food is simply too expensive, and I'm sure the nation is groaning under the pressure just like me. I don't think I've ever found things this difficult before, and trust me, it's been bad.

Also, I'm kind of 'between jobs', and as I'm self-employed, Jobseekers Allowance is not really worth investigating. I'd be better off trying to pick up extra work elsewhere (trouble is 'elsewheres' are being closed down). I did step foot in the Jobcentre, I asked for advice and the lady said all they do is hand out benefits. My eyes pleaded with her, 'oh help me' I nearly screamed, it was only 9.10am, the chairs in the waiting area for benefits were filling up, behind me a queue was forming and it trailed outside the door and onto the path.

"I wish I could help," she said sympathetically. I had to try very hard to stop myself from crying. A man elbowed his way to the desk, pushing me to the side. "I'm talking to this woman," snapped the lady, "wait your turn."

I sent my CV off to an agency, it was for a position much junior than anything I've done before, but the money wasn't bad, and it was close so I could cycle there. The recruitment agent called me up. "How old are you," she asked. "Thirty-three," I said, "but I'm sure you're not supposed to ask my age."

"You could definitely do this job," she said. "You've had a lot of experience, and you're well qualified, but how would you feel working under someone else --- the woman you'd be working under, she's not going anywhere."

"I'd be happy to," I said. "I don't mind."

Anyway, that was that. I wasn't suitable for the job, because I'd be able to do it.

In my attempt to keep afloat, I've investigated the Sainsbury's feed your family for £50 planner, and I think it's a load of shite. If you ate that much 'basics' wholemeal bread, you'd be crying into the toilet, and then sticking your head in it. Also, shopping from week to week like that could be expensive. And there's no fun in that menu, and no wine.

I'm running my own feed your family on sawdust experiment. But as ours is a family of two, I need to feed us on £25 a week, just for the sake of healthy competition. And that will include washing powder, shampoo etc. I absolutely don't believe in buying everything from a basics range either. Poor people need to eat well too.

So: two weeks ago I spent £70 in Sainsbury's. This week I spent £30 in Aldi. I have friends over for lunch on Wednesday, and then dinner Wednesday evening.  This means I can't buy any more food until June 13th.

So, what did I cook yesterday out of our non-existent food? A freaking enormous homemade lasagna, that's what, whilst Jack cleaned out his bedroom with his Grandad.

"Food tastes nicer when you have a tidy bedroom," he mused as we hung out in his room. "I really enjoyed that lasagna.'

So we won't starve if we stay clean and tidy.

And, thank God, I have plenty of stock cubes.









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