Dancefloor

Some emotions are so old, and so well buried, that when you feel them again it's as if they're new.

When I was a child, every year my school would hold a disco. And, every year, I would don my best velvet waistcoat, take my hair out of its permanent pony-tail, and attempt to occupy some kind of space on the dance floor. I would half-heartedly jump up and down, I would twitch from side to side, and - most importantly - I would try to pretend I recognised music that was quite clearly not Tchaikovsky's Dying Swan. And every year I would nervously await the final three and a half minutes of the night: the three and a half minutes that made me try and fake a sickness every single year, on exactly the same date.

It was always horrible, and I can still remember exactly how I felt. I can remember the cold chill I got when the lights went down, and the churn of my stomach when the pace of the music slowed to a rate that forces you to cling in pairs. I can still feel the sense of shame as I immediately retreated to a dark seat in an even darker corner, and the pain and sense of exclusion I felt as I watched every one else choose somebody to dance with that wasn't me. I remember the humiliation - trying to become invisible - and the hurt that I wasn't visible enough. The desperate wish to be somewhere else, and the more desperate wish to be someone else. The hope, tiny and improbable as it was, that perhaps that year somebody would pick me.

And I remember - inevitably - the moment when the teachers would look at the remaining boy (whoever it was that year), and at me, and would then make a little gesture that said: well, go on then you two. You're a girl. He's a boy. Dance. As if we were being problem children by sitting it out, and destroying the happiness of the couples by watching forlornly from the edges: our sadness making everyone uncomfortable. As if we had given up all rights to picking our partners by not being popular enough. And as if anybody would do. Because we just needed somebody to cling to, didn't we?

Of all my memories of childhood, that one hurts the most. And - when I left school - that was the one I left behind with the most gratitude. Never again, I thought. Never again will I have to sit on the edge of the dancefloor on my own and watch the room fill with couples. And I didn't. I stayed away from them during University formals, and I always left the club before the music slowed. I made sure, as an adult, that I never ever had to feel again what I felt as a nine year old girl.

Twenty years later, and the room is filling all over again. And I feel nine, all over again.

Everyone I know has now chosen their partner, and been chosen. They've fallen in love for the last time, and now they're starting the long, long slow dance that will (they hope) last the rest of their lives. And I am still sitting on the edge in the dark, on my own: being pushed towards the leftovers, regardless of who they are, because they're somebody to hold onto. Watching the couples, and watching their happiness, and recognising those feelings of loss and loneliness all over again. Wanting it for myself, and knowing I don't have it. Wondering why. And knowing as I knew back then: that when everyone has chosen, you have to sit the rest out. Because it's too late.

"Do you think," I said to my dad last week, "that most of the truly amazing men in the world are taken by 30?"
I had hoped he would roll his eyes and tell me not to talk nonsense; had hoped I was talking nonsense.
"Mmm," he said. "Probably. Well, the nice ones get snapped up, don't they, and then they stay there because they're nice. I was snapped up at 23."
"Are any left?"
"Possibly. But there's usually something wrong with them. Commitment fear and trust issues and infidelity issues etc. Same goes for women though."
"Do you think I've missed the boat, dad?"
"Maybe. But you can always wait until round Two and go for the divorcees."

And I laughed, but it made me sad. Not because I want to settle down now - the thought terrifies me - and not because I want a house and children immediately, or even very soon. But because I've never really had love - never been in love and been loved back at the same time - and so it seems tragic that I'll never have it when I'm young, and if I get it when I'm older it will never be a fresh love: will always be on the back of something failed and tired and sad. That I'll never get the innocence and hope and whole-heartedness that everyone deserves once in their lives. And it seems tragic that I'm still in love with a man who doesn't love me back - still unable to shake him from my heart - and that while I waited for him everyone started dancing.

When I was nine, I knew there were no real options if I wanted to maintain my dignity and self respect. I couldn't charge on to the dancefloor, picking apart couples or waiting for them to fall apart of their own accord, or stand on the floor shouting in protest, or cry in the corner.  And I couldn't pick up whoever was left, just because they were left. Twenty years later, I still have no options. I won't meet somebody here - we don't speak the same language - and I can't move home to London purely so that I can pick up whatever is left before it's too late. I can't start ploughing through bars and clubs trying to find anyone still on their own; even if I was ready to date again - which I'm still not quite - I couldn't do that. It's too far from who I am. And - more importantly - I have a life to get on with. Plans. Hopes. Dreams. Ambitions. I'm not giving them all up just so that I have somebody to dance with before they're all gone.

There was one secret dream I had, when I was nine, that I never told anyone: the dream that would stop me dissolving into a lump in the corner. When I was sitting on my little chair in the dark, I used to imagine that somebody new would walk in. A boy that nobody had seen before: who was so beautiful, and so intelligent, and so charismatic, that he had been somewhere else when everyone else was choosing. So amazing, that he had seen more than just the dancefloor. And he would walk in, and every single girl in the room would wish they hadn't picked so soon: would regret how quickly they had made their decision. But he would look at them, and look at me, and see all of it. All of me. And he would ask me to dance.

The emotions I pushed down so long ago have risen back up again and startled me. But - as when I was nine - there's absolutely nothing I can do but wait, and use my time as wisely as I can. Accept that perhaps I'm not meant for dancing. And hope that if somebody amazing turns up, I'm the one he wants to dance with.

Even if we're a little late.

Outcome

It missed. At the last minute, it changed direction and headed off towards Tokyo.

But everything is still cancelled. And I still have flu.

Typhoon 1 -- Holly 0.

God wins.

Victory

I`ve totally triumphed over the typhoon. In case anyone was wondering if it`s possible to win against God and any of his Acts: it is. And I have just proved it.

It`s still coming. It is definitely still coming. The wind has picked up, it`s freezing, the corridors at school are making whistling noises, and animals are going bonkers: tweeting and gathering and hiding and getting over-excited and/or anxious about their potential doom (do typhoons kill birds? The Miyazakian birds seem to think so). I haven`t started stockpiling marshmallows yet, but I`ll do that as soon as I get home. I certainly don`t want to be put in a situation where I have no marshmallows left when the wind hits.

However, I`m also a little otherwise occupied because of the following, oft-repeated conversation:

"How are you?"
"I`m fine," reply 36 little voices at once.
"Fine is not an answer I`m interested in. Who`s hungry?"
Fifteen hands go up.
"Who`s happy?"
Two hands go up.
"Who`s sleepy?"
28 hands go up.
"Who`s great?"
One optimistic hand goes up.
"And who`s sick?"
36 hands go up.

And then, in case they haven`t communicated properly, the teeny tiny ones climb on to my lap, wait for me to say something, and then cough in my open mouth. Or wipe their noses on my shoulder or hand. Or - inexplicably - take something off their lip and try and stick it on mine. Or lick my nose. Or lick their own hand and then wipe my face and then lick their hand again. Or kiss me straight on the mouth. Or roll a piece of rice between their fingers and then try and make me eat it. (At least, I hope it`s rice.)

I am therefore - along with most of the Elementary school teaching staff, and all of Kindergarten - sick. Nose running, throat burning, unable to speak properly. Which, I`m beginning to realise, is an occupational hazard, because nobody in the entire world can confront 500 slightly different flu germs a week and remain able to breathe at night and not wake up dreaming that you`re buried in sand. I can pour multi-vitamins down my throat with all the enthusiasm I can muster, but there isn`t a single letter of the alphabet that can protect me from that.

So I win, and the typhoon loses. It can blow as hard as it likes - it can cancel every single plan I`ve made for the next three days, and it can stop me having dinner with my friends - because I can`t go anyway. I`ll be scowling at inanimate objects in my bedroom regardless of what the weather does: I`ll be wrapped up in a blanket eating KitKats no matter how violent God wants to get or not get. It`s up to him. It doesn`t make the slightest bit of difference to me anymore. It can`t touch me.

Thus my flu has given two fingers up to the typhoon, and I am victorious. Snotty, growly, scowly and victorious.

And no matter how sick I get, isn`t that all that really matters?

Typhoon

Sod`s Law is back in full force.

I haven`t stopped asking about typhoons. During Typhoon Season, I drove my friends and colleagues mad with my "is it a typhoon yet?" enquiries. I would text them, I would email them: I would follow them around the staff room when they were trying to make coffee like an annoying toddler.

"Is it a typhoon yet?"
"No. It`s just windy."
"Is it a typhoon now?"
"No."
"What about now?"
"Still windy."
"What about last night?"
"Just wind."
"Tonight?"
"Wind."
"But it`s really windy."
"Yes. It is really windy. But it`s just really windy. It`s not a typhoon."

And, by the end of Typhoon Season, when I had still failed to witness a typhoon, I was having proper little tantrums.

"Is it a typhoon?"
"No."
"But wwwwwhhhhhhhhhhhhhhyyyyy nooootttttttt?"

Because we don`t get typhoons in England - we don`t get anything exciting in England - and so earthquakes, typhoons and perhaps tidal waves and hurricanes are unbearably exotic to me, and confirm that I am abroad. Indeed, any violent, extreme Act of God from a God who rarely even notices that England exists -and, when he does, just covers it in a bit of snow - is therefore exciting, and in some strange way acts as a little gold sticker that proves I was here.

However, Typhoon Season came and went with no typhoons, and eventually - with much sulking - I stopped enthusiastically tugging at the back of shirts whenever there was a bit of rain, and muttering "Typhoon? Typhoon?" in my sleep every time the wind blew.

October has been a quiet month, and I`ve been stony broke: eeking out pasta sauce with stolen packets of ketchup, and nicking toilet rolls from MacDonalds and popping leftover bread rolls from the school canteen into my pockets. But this weekend was going to bring relief from that, in the form of an all expenses-paid trip on Friday as part of an International Festival (I am international, and so all I`m expected to do is turn up and be foreign and they`ll pay for everything: a little like an gaijin escort), a huge fancy dress Halloween party on Saturday, and shopping for winter clothes with my new pay cheque on Sunday. Everything had been planned down to the letter: costume, travel, exactly how long I could go without shopping for food because I`d be eating bar snacks, exactly how much longer I could go without doing my laundry or owning a decent jumper.

And what would you know: now the typhoon is coming.

Everything is cancelled. International Festival: cancelled. Halloween party: cancelled. Shopping: cancelled. Offer to buy me drinks and food: cancelled. All interest in me being foreign: cancelled. Imaginative and yet cute Halloween costume: cancelled. And, instead, I get to sit inside all weekend, hoping that my roof doesn`t blow off, unable to invite anybody round because they`re not allowed to go outside in case they get hit by debris and sticks and glass and whatever else gets flung around in a typhoon (I don`t know, obviously, because this is my first). I get to have no electricity, probably, and no hot food, and nobody to talk to, and I get to sit in stinky clothes and freeze to death. Which is extremely far from the weekend I had planned, and somewhat diminishes just how exciting Acts of God can be. Because this God is obviously not as exotic as I had hoped, and obviously just a killjoy and pain in the arse.

Of course, now that I have no interest in the typhoon, or in any kind of weather update, everybody I have ever met is contacting me to tell me it`s coming.

"Typhoon at the weekend."
"I know."
"There`s a big typhoon on Saturday."
"I know."
"Typhoon tomorrow."
"I know."
And then the killer:
"Maybe typhoon this weekend. Maybe not. But everything is cancelled anyway."

To which I can come to only the following conclusion: Acts of God abide by Sod`s Law just like anything else. And if this weekend is ruined, I asked for it.

Many many times.

Meatloaf

My parents just found out about my scooter.

I wondered how long it would take them. Mum's been at school all week, and dad wouldn't find out until she read my blog and told him about it. And read it and tell him she clearly did.

"What the fuck do you think you are playing at?" my dad yelled down the webcam. Or: his shirt button yelled down the webcam. Mum's face was taking up the whole screen.
Mum pressed her lips together. "What is the one thing I have always asked you to never do, Holly? One thing?"
"Don't run holding scissors?"
"No. Don't ride a motorbike."
"It's not a motorbike. It's a scooter."
"It's a motorbike. It's a slow motorbike."
"It's a fast bicycle, mum."
Dad started pulling at the wheelie chair.
"Let me speak to her. I want to speak to her."
Mum leant towards the camera.
"Your dad wants to speak to you now," she informed me, in case I was both blind and deaf.
Dad sat down so that all I could see was his neck and chin, and mum perched on the chair next to him.
"Don't sit on my frigging glasses!" he shouted immediately. "Jesus Christ."
"I didn't! They are not sat on! I sat next to them!"
"Why are they bent in the shape of your butt then?" Dad put them on and glared at me. "One day and you fucking crashed the thing?"
"Only into a fence."
"Who do you think you are: Meatloaf? Sell it immediately. You are not born to ride motorbikes. You're like your mother."
"Oy," mum said. Then she poked the top of her head into the screen. "This is my contemptuous look, Holly. I am giving your father a contemptuous look."
"That's not contempt," dad replied, scrunching his face up and shaking his fist at the camera. "This is contempt."
"That looks like anger."
"No - this is anger." He did the same face.
"That's nothing like anger."
"And this is happy." Dad did the same face. "See how versatile I am?"
Mum pushed him out the way and stuck her face back in the webcam.
"I'm still contemptuous, as you can see. Holly, sell the motorbike."
"Did you get hurt?" dad barked, pushing mum out of the way again. "Did you break it?"
"No, but the basket fell off."
At which point dad shouted with laughter.
"The basket? What kind of motorbike is this? Too right you're not Meatloaf. Meatloaf doesn't have a basket on his motorbike."
"I told you it's a scooter."
"Give it up, Holly. You remember when you decided to ride my bike, eighteen months ago? And you put that poofy girl's seat on it and then crashed it and wouldn't get on again? I still have to ride that because I can't work out how to get it off again. A man's bike with a girl's fat bottom seat. I get laughed at by the boys."
"He does," mum added.
"Although it is pretty comfortable."
"It is," mum agreed.
"But still: a fat bottomed girl's seat. I'm not a fat bottomed girl. Sell the motorbike, Holly."
"No. And it's a scooter."
"Don't make me come over there," mum said, leaning into the webcam again. "See this? This is my threatening face, Holly. Look at it and take note. I don't like motorbikes."
"And you're not meatloaf."
"I know, but it's a scooter."

Parents put a lot of hard work and effort into turning their little spoilt brats into decent, workable human beings: they don't really want to see all of that effort get wrapped around a tree, or ploughed into a rice field. I can see that. But I'm going to be super careful, from now on. So careful, that nobody will have reason to worry about me and my transport.

Which is, for the record, a scooter.

Fried Fish

If you`re interacting with children on a daily basis, the assumption is that every day you`ll become more like a child.

You don`t.

If anything, the inner child recedes: when confronted with the real thing, it simply can`t compete. Whether it`s the simple joy of jumping up and down for absolutely no reason at all, or the stomach clenching fun of looking at someone until they give up and look away again, or the never-ending fascination in Rock Scissors Paper when there`s nothing to win but honour and pride in the shape of your own hand, as an adult you just can`t convince yourself that you enjoy it now as much as you used to. It`s just not easy to air punch and scream with jubilation because your hand is flat and theirs is in a fist: not so simple to really feel the triumph. It`s more of a and there you go, don`t mess with me because I`ve been playing Rock Scissors Paper since your parents were embryos kind of satisfaction (accompanied with a raised and wise eyebrow, because none of them have worked out that Japanese girls always choose paper and Japanese boys always choose rock and so I always win).

Worse: understanding fades away completely. I didn`t understand children when I was a child, and now that I`m a fully grown adult I understand them even less. I`m 28, and I`ve done a lot of things in my life that could be regarded as cool: been to celebrity parties, worked in trendy London media (with sparkley loo seats), been on telly, been told by the (gay) TopShop Creative Director that I`m "totally cute", featured on the front of a fashion magazine, visited 18 countries, paraglided and whitewater rafted and rock climbed and hot-airballooned, and partied until 7am in some of the best cities in the world. But as far as the children I teach are concerned, there is nothing less trendy, less hip and less cool than Holly Smale. The teacher who doesn`t know any songs by Arashi, and who picks up pencil cases covered in celebrity photos and says "Ooh, and who is this lovely chap?" The teacher who has nothing fluffy or sparkley or funky in her hair at all, who wears pink Crocs all the time, has a jaunty, terrible Japanese accent, drives into fences and hands out Winnie The Pooh stickers to 11 year olds.

Which means that as young as I am in adult terms, I`ve become used to seeing myself through the eyes of children: of feeling decrepit and totally, totally past it. I`ve gotten used to entertaining them with my failure to be cool: to dancing like an embarrassing old Aunt at a disco, or singing the vocabulary they`re meant to be learning instead of saying it, or meowing like a cat, or taking my shoes off and wandering around the classroom in bare feet. I`ve gotten used to not really knowing what it is to be a child.

And I have finally, finally triumphed.

For the last week, a small, cheeky little boy has been calling me Muxing. She`s another foreign teacher in the area, she`s of Chinese descent, and I have absolutely no idea why he is calling me by her name because we are not similar in either looks or mannerisms. He shouts it down the corridors, he says it in the middle of class whenever there`s a moment of silence, he waits until I walk past and then yells it at me in repeat. He waits until he has the biggest group of students possible, and then he screams it at the top of his voice. And I have reacted just like an adult.

"Muxing!"
"I`m not Muxing."
"Muxing!"
"I`m not Muxing."
"Muxing!"
"I don`t understand; why are you calling me Muxing?"
"Muxing!"
"Stop calling me Muxing."
"Muxing!"
"Stop it."
"Muxing!"
"Stop it."
"Muxing!"
"Why?"
"Muxing!"
"Why?! WHY WHY WHY WHYWHYWHYWHYWHY?"
"Muxing!"

Finally, something clicked. The realisation that the only way I could get him to shut the hell up (Muxing, incidentally, replaced Fried Fish, which was his previous favourite shouting phrase) was to think the way a child thinks.

"Muxing!" he shouted.
"Oh, I understand!" I yelled back in Japanese. "You love Muxing, don`t you?"
"Eh?"
"You love Muxing! You love her. You luuuuurrrvvve her. Mwamwamwa you want to kisssss her."
"No! I don`t love Muxing!"
"You do!"
"I don`t!"
"You do!!! You love her! You love her so much."
"Yes!" all his little 9 year old boy mates started shouting, laughing hysterically. "You love Muxing!"
"You must love her! You must!"
"No, I don`t love Muxing!" he yelled, stamping his feet in fury, and then scampered off.

I walked past him a few minutes later, and he said absolutely nothing. Not Fried Fish, and certainly not Muxing.

That`s the thing with children. It`s all very well and good keeping your distance and behaving like an adult, as long as you remember what it`s like to be a child.

And somewhere underneath all of it, I think I still do.

Crazy Pills

I`m running out of drugs.

I tried cutting my dose by biting them in half (they taste really, really disgusting), but I`m not quite ready yet: the number of cigarettes smoked immediately tripled, breaths between smoking halved, sadness started creeping into the middle of me, and I began missing him badly and painfully again, which I cannot afford to do. So I sent mum and dad a plea.

Seven crazy pills left, I emailed. Tick tock tick tock. Need you to send more. Mum, I`m going to bet you`ve lost the prescription haven`t you.
What prescription?
The prescription I left with you.
I don`t know where it is.
Yes. Thought so. Dad?
I`m on it, he emailed. What happens if you run out?
I won`t die. But I will start crying in the loos at lunchtime again and staring at the ceiling for hours and hours and hours wishing I was someone else. And I`ve got much better things to do with my time.
Gotcha. Will get you some even I have to steal it from my doctor friend when he`s in the pub.

Dad turned the house upside down, found the slip, went to the doctors`, got another prescription, went to Boots, and then sent the following email (copied and pasted, because I cannot write like my father):

Bad news is ready for next Tuesday!! BUT: I threatened them with abuse and horses heads in beds --result ''lets make that Wednesday." SO: Said she was a fine looking lady and perhaps she'd like to go for a drink sometime --result '' I meant next Thursday.'' SO : Broke down, told her my Giro was lost in t`post and that I was having panic attacks --result ''Make it week after next and stop being a woss.'' SO: Asked her very nicely if she could possibly help for the sake of my daughter ---result: ''come back at 5.30 today and i'll make sure its done.'' There is a lesson to be learnt here but needless to say I havn't any idea what it is!! Dad xxxx

To which my mum responded to us both immediately:

Mark, if you have ever wondered why I love you, this is it.

Love makes itself known in the strangest ways, and often in what is done, rather than what is said. My dad - the man with the biggest heart in the world - doesn`t need to tell me he loves me (although he does): he shows it every single time he swoops in to save me. And if I need faith in romantic love, I don`t need to look much further than my parents. Who - for all their eccentricities - still love each other and look after each other and fight for each other, the way they both love and look after and fight for me.

The crazy pills are just the temporary lifebelt thrown to me in a storm; but the boat is my family. And when one kind of love threatens to pull me under, another kind of love always pushes me back up again.

And - luckily for me - that love will always be stronger.

Full support

Harai has been good to me this morning. I`ve been a little shaky - what with nearly dying against a rice-field fence and ruining all of my hard earned street cred in the process - so he has gone out of his way to distract me.

And I do believe he`s managed it.

Harai: (Laughing.) I am bad man. I laugh at bad thing. Look. (Shows me fax.)
Me: That`s just pretty scribbles to me. What does it say?
Harai: Sometimes, when sun goes, bad men come out. And they send message to look out bad man. This girl, little one, is walking yesterday at 10am. Sun not gone, but walking. Old man stops car, and says girl, come here. Girl walks up to car. 70 year old man in there. 170cm high.
Me: That wasn`t bright.
Harai: No. And girl says what? And old man lift up his top and show her his brassiere.
Me: His what?
Harai: His brassiere. (Cups his chest with his hands.)
Me: His bra?
Harai: (laughing). Yes. His bra. Girl upset.
Me: I bet. What colour was it?
Harai: I don`t know. It doesn`t tell me. But his t-shirt was grey.
Me: Why was he wearing a bra, Harai?
Harai: I think he is mad man. But also in Japan there is fashion for guys to wear bra.
Me: Guys?
Harai: Guys. Like me.
Me: You wear a bra?
Harai: No. But some men do. Important men. They wear it when stressed to feel.... refreshed.
Me: Refreshed? Why would they feel refreshed?
Harai: Because they under pressure and then they put bra on and they like phooooooooooooo, and they relaxed. They like I am free and easy now.
Me: I don`t believe you.
Harai: Okay. I show you.

And then he got on the internet and showed me this:

Me: Gosh. He does look relaxed. Who is it?

Harai: Environmental Governor I think. He want lots of men to wear bra.

Me: Well, I can see his point. He is very free and easy. Are you going to follow advice?

Harai: No. I am not stressed. But if I did, I wear black or red. Not pink. I am man.

There are all kinds of support in a crisis. Lacy, pink, cropped, full length, underwired and silky. Padded, layered and ruffled.

And Harai told me about all of it.

Scooby Don`t

There are so many things I want to do before I die. I want to publish a book and paraglide in front of Mount Everest and trek through Nepal and get an A level in a foreign language and be adopted by a stray kitten and be adopted by a stray child and sleep in a blanket in the desert and fall in love and visit a hanging monastery in China and scuba dive without panicking and be bought the perfect piece of jewellery without picking it first and stand up on a surfboard and see a geisha and a red squirrel and a wild polar bear.

And I have always, always wanted to own a scooter. Even though they scare me. Perhaps because they scare me.

"I`m getting a scooter," I told my dad.
"No, you`re not," he said.
"Yes I am."
"No, you`re not."
"I am."
"God, you`re so pigheaded."
"Yes, I am."
"Just like me."
"Yes, I am."
"I`m getting a scooter," I told my mum.
She cried.
"I`m getting a scooter," I told my best friend.
"Do you know yourself at all? Like, at all?"
"I`m getting a scooter," I told my sister.
"Oh for fuck`s sake."
"I`m getting a scooter," I told Harai.
"Because you are -" and then he held his finger up to his head and twisted it a few times.

So - because I`m nothing if not pigheaded - I got one. Or, more specifically, Shin gave me his old one. And - even though he asked me very nicely "not to pimp like girl" - I pimped like girl. I gave it a stripy seat and gold fish stickers and a little diamante cross. I went on the internet and ordered reflective red stars so that I would be visibly cool at night time. I scrubbed it and patted it and sang to it and I named it Scooby. And I pottered around on it all weekend: down to the beach, to the shops (when I didn`t actually need anything from the shops: I just wanted to drive to the shops), round and round the back streets at 30kph like a little old lady joy rider, wearing my pink coat and the white helmet with permanent marker drawings all over it. Bursting with pride because I was so free, and so brave, and proving everyone and their assumption in my crapness so wrong.

And, today, I was going to tell my parents that I had, in fact, got a scooter. And that - contrary to expectations - I was extremely capable, sensible, good at driving and unlikely to die at all.

This morning, I crashed it.

The drive to school is a long one: 20 km through rice fields. But I was careful. Heeding Shin`s advice ("take it eeeaaazzzy, Noppo"), I took the back roads, I stayed in the middle of my lane, I indicated and checked my mirrors, I never went above 30km an hour and I only put my iPod in one ear so that I could hear whatever incandescent road rage was happening behind me. I added an extra 5ks to my trip to avoid the roads with trucks, and I sat properly so that my posture was exemplary. And when I got to school - about 50 minutes later - I was absolutely full of it: specifically drove past the entrance so that I could give the clustered teachers and students a little regal wave, and then turned into the car park to put my pretty, pimped up bike somewhere prominent. Turned it off, took my helmet off and grinned at about twenty (awestruck, I thought) open mouthed teenagers.

"You can`t park there," one of the teachers shouted at me. "You can park nearer the school, in the bike area."
"Okay!" I screamed back gaily, holding my helmet under one arm like they do in the films and flicking my messy blonde hair the way they also do in films (despite the fact that it was stuck to my head, which it absolutely never is in films).

And then I turned it back on and shot into the fence.

In fact, I didn`t just shoot into the fence. Terror and humiliation caused me to hold on to the accelerator - instead of letting go (who knew?!) - and so I shot into the fence, and then powered myself into the cement water ditch running along side it. The bike mangled with the fence, got stuck in the ditch; the helmet crashed to the floor, and - in the meantime - Harai was pegging it across the carpark shouting "Hollllllllyyyyyyyy!!!"

By the time I had finally worked out that I had to stop accelerating into the fence, the front basket had been ripped off the front of the bike, I was bright red and shaking like a leaf, and every single one of my students and colleagues was open mouthed for an entirely different reason.

"Are you hurting?" Harai said as he pulled up next to me, absolutely horrified.
I covered my face with my hands.
"No. But I couldn`t be more pissed off with myself if I tried. I am such a loser."
"You look quite cool before bang, though," he reassured me. "Nice pink coat."

I`m so sorry, I emailed Shin as soon as I had stopped trembling and swearing. I broke your bike.
ARE YOU OKAY? he emailed back.
Yes. But the bike isn`t. I mashed up the basket.
Don`t worry. The bike is indifferent.
Yes, I replied drily. That bike is totally indifferent.

It doesn`t matter what I do. It doesn`t matter how careful I am, or how slow I go, or how brave I am: I am crap. Inherently, genetically crap. And while I`m not giving Scooby up, I`m going home tonight and I am insuring myself up to the hilt. Because while I can`t let my inevitable crapness stop me from doing things - otherwise my life will be as terrible as my skills are - I can certainly make sure that when both my legs are broken, somebody else is paying for it.

Owning a scooter might be on my list of things to do before I die, but if this morning is anything to go by that might be sooner than I hoped. And that irrational fear of scooters? It might be a little more rational than I thought. Which only gives me one more reason to keep going: the conquering of all things that scare me.

That, and being totally and utterly pigheaded.

Flashback

Number seven has just made a hussy out of me.

I had to get one. Nobody could logically expect me to live for two entire months on my own. Anything could happen in two months; things could be done and seen that would never be done and seen again. Plus I could never just have one: I need a little one too, for when I'm drunk, or in a nightclub, or I can't be bothered with the weight of something important. A little fling.

I spent a long time deciding: touching them all, looking them up and down, playing with all their buttons. But this one was perfect. Shop soiled, and a third of the price it should have been. Touched by many, many strangers. It had seen better days, it was missing a few essential parts - like a warranty - and it was therefore exactly what I was looking for.

I bought it, felt pretty pleased with myself, took it home, unwrapped it and took my first long, hard look at it.

The camera looked back at me in silence. And then my stomach shrank.

"I've...." I whispered to it. "I've..."
We continued to stare each other out.
"Yes," the camera said. "Say it."
"I've seen you before, haven't I."
"Yes. You have."
"I've.... Oh God. I've owned you before, haven't I."
"Yes."

And I had. I don't know when. I don't remember what we did, or where we went, or the memories we created. I don't know where it went wrong, or where I threw it away. I don't think it was this year - have a vague suspicion it was a year or two ago - but I have definitely, without a shadow of a doubt, owned this exact camera before. Same brand, same make, same colour. All of it.

I hung my head.

"Perhaps we should pretend that this didn't just happen," I told it. "I've changed. I'm not the person I used to be."
"We'll just see about that, won't we," the camera said, getting snootily back into its case. "We'll just see about that."

If there has ever been a wake up call in the world of photographic promiscuity, I think that was probably it. And while it's still only a fling - it's not the white Olympus Pen - I'm going to treat it a little bit better this time round.

Because you never know when the past will come back to shoot you.