these prompts don’t inspire me to write whole pieces, but i might have a short response.
I will gather them every week or so. think of them as notes in the margin.
Share one of the best gifts you’ve ever received.
A beautiful Mont Blanc pen, and a friend once gave me a ridiculous amount of Air Miles to enable me to take a trip to America, 15 cities over six weeks.
People have allowed me to stay in their homes all over the world.
Fed me when I didn’t have much.
Helped me with something.
Listened. Heard me.
Tell us about your favorite pair of shoes, and where they’ve taken you.
There was a trend, it must have been the eighties. I owned a pair of black boots, I think they were called pixie boots. Suede, ankle boots, with a kind of gathered floppy effect at the top.
The heels wore down, the suede got scuffed, they lived in a corner of the wardrobe long after they were worn for the last time.
Sometimes it is hard to part with things we have loved, that have served us well — boots, cars,wives.
Who are your favorite people to be around?
You want me to name names?
There were a particular few years, we were all on the up, summers were hot, the drink flowed liberally, the food tasted amazing, the flashbulbs, the attention, the feeling of being all together. Whichever city or country we found ourselves in, we could gather and hold each other up to the light.
Those people. The ones who made the afternoons languid, the evenings slip into mornings and somehow gave us the impression we were all going to live forever.
What is your favorite drink?
If we are basing it on levels of consumption, then it is coffee. Black and strong and many of them.
What do I order at a bar? A good vodka, usually Grey Goose, with tonic and ice.
If I really need that ‘end of the week, please give me something to take the edge off and I am not quite sure if I need to head into oblivion, but we will start with this,’ it is a Dirty Martini every time.
Champagne, but it has to be half decent. Like all things in life, it is pointless doing things half-cocked. Do it and do it well Otherwise, it becomes an exercise in almost celebrating, almost getting drunk, almost a hangover, not quite. I’m ok, false alarm.
What bores you?
tedious people. meetings that drag on. lonely journeys. days without music. being on hold.
What advice would you give to your teenage self?
A list of things to not only not wear but don’t even buy them.
These people to avoid.
A few choices that could be avoided that will just mean less problems.
Play the long game, stay in school; you won’t regret it.
Look around you and realise sooner that you have some skills.
You are worth more than you ever knew.
What is the biggest challenge you will face in the next six months?
To be able to feel as if I have found my way to a place where I can cope.
A plateau, a point where I am more than I am in the past.
To understand enough that I feel, if not control, at least a sense of ownership.
I don’t need to feel fixed; normal was never the point.
There are some things I can never be.
Untroubled peace of mind and sleep.
Failing that — successfully growing carrots and aubergines.
If you could permanently ban a word from general usage, which one would it be? Why?
I suspect I will not be the only person to pick this.
LIKE
the most annoying tic of a word that seemed to start off in the mouths of gormless reality tv stars. Teens grabbed it and made sure it appeared three times in any sentence they uttered.
Which should have been the point that any right-minded adult parent had nipped it in the bud and spared us all. Perfectly normal people use it all the time without compunction.
I really don’t think I have to explain why I don’t like it. You know!