Learning to fly

I'm concerned about your love life, my friend emailed me today. You're constantly swooping in to save the bird with the broken wing, and I'm just getting really fed up of watching the bird peck you, flap in your face a bit and then waddle off to do a poo in the corner.

I know, I emailed back, sniggering a little bit (I love the way she makes animals people. It's one of my favourite things about her). I can't help it. So what do I do?

Be a little more cautious before you pick them up, she replied. Don't assume that if they're squawking, it's because they're hurt. Don't assume that it's your job to fix them. Let them do a poo in their own bloody corner, and - if you can - try and find a healthy one. Okay?

Gotcha, I emailed back.

And that's the great thing about mates. If you can't stop looking for broken wings, at least they can try and guide you towards the birds that can still fly properly.

Head in the desert island sand

Sometimes, you don't realise how you're behaving until somebody points it out to you.

"Hols," the BBC said tiredly ten minutes ago. "We need to work out where you're going to be for TBJITW results on Thursday."
"I haven't decided yet," I replied nervously.
"You need to decide, because we need to work out hotels etc. And you also need to pick up your phone when we call you."
"Sorry," I said in a small voice. I couldn't argue with it: the producer has rung me four times in the last 12 hours, and each time I've listened to my phone ringing from another room and pretended - to myself, as well as to the BBC - that I couldn't hear it. The final time, I actually put my head under the duvet and convinced myself I was asleep.
"We know it's tough," the BBC said kindly. "But it's going to happen, and you need to just brave it out."
I'm sorry, I texted the producer ten minutes after I had shamefacedly put the phone down. I'm just scared.
I know, the producer texted back. Of course you are. But try and be scared and organised at the same time.

And this is what I do. When there's nothing left for me to do but wait, I stick my head firmly in the sand and pretend that the decision isn't there, or I'm not there: whichever makes it easier to bear. I did it when I got my GCSE results, and I did it when I got my A Level results, and I did it when I had my heart broken and couldn't get out of bed for three days (apart from to pee, and I had to make sure this was done when nobody else was in, or my friends would have lynched me en route and carried me, sobbing, to the pub). I did it when the rabbit died and everybody was crying, and I did it when I made a horrendous mistake at work and sent out an embargoed press release with the wrong embargo on it. I'm brave and I'm courageous, until all control has been taken away from me. When there's nothing left for me to do - when I've done absolutely everything I can - I panic, and I hide away. Partly because I'm terrified, partly because I'm terrified of being terrified, and partly because I hate not having any control over my life or my fate. All control feels like it has been taken temporarily away from me: my future is in the hands of other people, and it makes me very, very scared.

So I'm hiding. Or - I should say - I've hidden. I have always opened exam results in private, tucked away in a corner, and I wanted to do the same this time round. Not because it would make me happy, but because I didn't have the courage to do anything else. It's not about feeling ashamed in front of friends and family if I don't get in to the top 11 (for whatever reason, they appear to love me anyway), or even about appearing smug if I do get in to the top 11. It's just about making myself as small and invisible as possible, and shutting myself off as much as possible, so that I don't get hurt.

But I will get hurt. I know that. Yes, it's a big reality-competition, but it's also something that would change my entire life; more importantly, it's something I know I would be brilliant at. I could make it amazing, and it would make me better. And I want it. I'm scared of saying that I want it - because it's opening myself up - but I do. Hiding myself away is not going to make me hurt less: it's just going to be another thing I push away where it shouldn't be, like the sunflower seed my sister stuck up her nose when we were children.

Come on, my friend texted me. Don't do this. Don't sit on your own.
Five minutes ago, I finally replied.
Okay, I messaged. I'm coming. I'm terrified, but I'm coming.

And I'm going to go. I will be in public, with my friends, with a tv camera, and I will take the results on the chin. I will open myself up to something that matters to me, and let myself be upset if I don't get through (preferably in the toilets, where the BBC can't film me). I will take a deep breath, and I will let somebody hold my hand through it. Because if I've learnt one thing throughout this process, it's that I have to be brave. And I have to allow myself to want things, and want them openly.

When this process comes to an end, I want to finish it differently to how it began. Not locked away in the dark, and walking with my head held high.

This weekend the clocks changed

A blog is not a place to brag. It's not a place to show off, or convey smugness. It should contain objective, thought out content that is of interest to somebody other than the owner of the blog, or it may as well not exist at all.

Oh, sod it. Who am I kidding?

I just got ID'd. Properly ID'd. Not just a cursory eyebrow lift: a full blown, "show me your passport or you can't have a drink" IDing, and it wasn't a chat-up line at all because it was conducted with an air of distinct grumpiness. He didn't spend years building a restaurant empire, the manager said as I stared at him in shocked silence, so that some jumped up teenager could come and get his livelihood taken away from him.

"So show me your passport," he repeated. "Or you can order a coke."

"Teenager?" I spluttered eventually.

He narrowed his eyes at me.

"Or driving license," he growled.

"Jumped up teenager?"

The manager glared at me. This conversation could go on for some time: he could tell. 

"Do you want your pizza?" he snapped. "Because you can leave without that too if you want."

"No, no," I said hurriedly, shining at him. "I don't want the drink, thanks. I don't think I need one anymore."

And you know what? It's got no damn relevance to anyone other than me, so it shouldn't be on my blog at all. But - frankly - I'm twenty seven, and the chances of that ever happening to me again are pretty much zero. So I'm going to smugly bathe in the glory for just a little while longer. (And possibly move into a candlelit Italian restaurant on the outskirts of Watford permanently.) 

The clocks might have lost us an hour yesterday, but - what with living with my father, having no job, no money and a disastrous love-life - I appear to be moving in the opposite direction. Which can only be a good thing. 

After the 7.5 disaster, at least I've got a few extra years left in me now to improve my rating. 

The Paps

There was a distinct lack of paparazzi camped out on my front lawn this morning. I woke up early and tentatively threw open the curtains as wide as I could - shielding my eyes from the glare of their flashes - but there was nobody out there. Not even one little camera man. Then I walked around the house in nowt but a towel, lingering by the windows as often as I could, and: nothing. I even went to the shops to buy a lolly in my pyjamas, covered in paint (I've been redecorating, not that the public know that because nobody has had the foresight to report this to the papers), and not one person followed me. My over-sized sunglasses, frankly, were completely wasted. The lady at the newsagents clearly just thought I had had a nose job (which would be pointless because I have the world's most insignificant nose. It barely counts as one).

It's a disgrace, that's what it is. I'm going to ring up Heat and tell them how unimpressed I am by the media's downright refusal to invade my privacy. "I've got loads of secrets," I plan on telling them: "loads. And you only need to knock on my front door and I'll tell you all of them."

Journalists are lazy: we PRs all know this. But my God, I'm very nearly on a documentary on telly! A minute and a half on BBC Bristol already achieved, I tell you! It beggars belief. What do you have to do to get stalked round here: actually achieve something?

Tomorrow, luckily, the BBC are coming round. I shall tell them to stay outside and do a bit of filming through the 10 centimetre gap in the hedge that I shall make five minutes before they arrive. I didn't come this far to sink back down into obscurity and actually have to work for a living.

 

Not when I went online only yesterday and bought a fake moustache especially.

Survival Skills

Dad texted me this morning from wherever it is he's gone. (Italy, I think. Possibly Budapest.)

Did you get my present? the text said, which caused me some alarm: it's incredibly rare for me to miss any kind of gift, however tiny it is.

No, I replied. Where is it? Gimme.

On top of fridge, dad messaged. Enjoy.

Why dad decided to leave a present on top of the fridge I have no idea: he knows full well that left to my own devices I'll live on Pot Noodles and cheese muffins, and neither of these need to be kept cold. It was very lucky, I thought as I wiped a bit of butter off my foot and left the rest of it on the floor, that it was a present and not a first aid kit or the back door keys, because it could have been a very dangerous oversight in the event of an accident with a tin opener.

On top of the fridge was The Worst-case Scenario Survival Handbook, with a note. Just in case, dad had written. Very useful, he added at the bottom of the electricity bill he hadn't opened (we both like doing that: if in doubt, just turn it over and doodle a happy face on the back).

I stared at the book for a few minutes, perplexed. In case of what? I wanted to text him, but that would be ungrateful and then he wouldn't bring me anything back from Italy (or Budapest) either. We had been laughing about desert island survival techniques earlier in the week, so perhaps this was to help me out if I got the job; or, perhaps it was to help me out during the four days this 27 year old adult would be spending all on her own. Including: How To Survive Runaway Camels; UFO adbuctions and leeches, it said on the front. Which was a little alarming, to be frank: when dad rang to mention the builders were coming at 9am on Friday, he hadn't mentioned any camels, UFOs or leeches at all. Perhaps he thought it was self-explanatory. We do have a half-hearted pond in our back garden after all, and the solar lights mum put in the flowerbeds would make it terribly easy to land a spaceship there.

After a quick browse, however, I came to the conclusion that the book is genius. How to crash land a plane on water, it said. How to stop a runaway passenger train. How to navigate a minefield (with the brilliant first suggestion: keep your eyes on your feet and don't move). How to jump from rooftop to rooftop (summarised: if you can't, then don't).

As a book, it's perfect. Women enjoy reading it because they can go shopping afterwards -reassured that there will be no minefields or runaway horses - and men enjoy reading it because they can go shopping afterwards and pretend that there might be. I have no doubt at all that after reading it dad felt a little more comfortable as a man, because he now knows how to catch a fish without a rod and survive a riptide. On the other hand, as a woman I feel reassured by the advice given (although, frankly, if I ever get stuck down a well I am so not inching up in an L shape, because it'll make my jeans dirty).

It missed out a few key survival tips, however, that would also be very useful in every day life. How to make sure your dad doesn't see the splodge of black insoluble paint you dropped on the carpet, for instance, would be handy. How to clean the house in 2.5 minutes, when he gets back earlier than you thought he would. How to hide his favourite, now smashed, mug; and pretend you didn't spend the emergency household money on Dominos.

On a larger scale, other techniques would have been appreciated over the last few weeks. How to get a second date would have been great, as would How not to cry in front of a BBC film crew. How to get more than 20 votes a day, would have been brilliant, as would How to make your mates hate you a little bit less. How to know when 'I'll call you' actually means I'll call you; How to conduct yourself on national radio when rated out of 10; How to say the right thing to Important People at the right time; How to get foot back out of mouth; How to know which foundation doesn't make your skin look orange. There are many, many topics that I would really quite have liked a 5 stage plan for over the last few weeks, but there weren't any. Nope: no books there. Just camels and UFOs and leeches, which - although thrilled that I can now avoid them - are nowhere near as dangerous as the holes I fall into on a daily basis. Holes that I do actually need a helping hand with.

Well? dad texted after half an hour. What did you think?

Umm, I texted back: handy. Very handy.

Because I'll say this for the book. When dad gets home in half an hour and sees the state of the house, knowing how to survive a volcano eruption might just be the most useful thing I've learnt all day.

TBJITW Thoughts

Sarah Louise and I decided this evening that there is no reason why we shouldn't both go through to the final of TBJITW on Thursday. 

It's unlikely, admittedly. It would be like casting Orlando Bloom and the dude that dates Keira Knightley in the same film: some would argue that it's doubling up. "Right," the Important People would say on the island: "would the posh British writer chick with the artistic bent and passion for travelling please step forward?" And then there would be trouble, obviously. Apart from colouring and height (we're polar opposites), there would be little to distinguish Sarah and I from each other: we'd both try and step on to the same spot at the same time, and then I'd probably squish her (she's only tiny). We're both from Hertfordshire, we're both single, and we both say stupid things occasionally and then regret it. We even both have synesthesia: she sees colours in numbers and dates, and I see them in sounds. So they wouldn't even be able to use that pub-quiz knowledge to differentiate us.

As a result, the better we've gotten to know each other, the sadder we have become. "There is no way we'll both go through," Sarah announced over lunch a few days ago: "we're just too similar. I think one British hippy chick is probably enough for the island."

"There's a reason there was only one ginger in the Spice Girls," I agreed, sighing and chewing on my straw (dad wasn't there to shout at me: he really hates it when I chew on straws). "If only one of us was from Mexico it would be an entirely different story."

Today, however, I've revised my opinion. This isn't a girl band: it's not even a mixed group. It's a job. PRability and aesthetics aside - however good or amazing the job is - it is still a job. Whoever gets it has to be able to do it and do it well, and (yes, I'll get shot for saying this, but...) there simply aren't that many people in the long-list that reasonably could. The fact that Sarah and I have similar talents - writing, exploring, drawing, getting spinach stuck between our teeth after eating a panini - should just make us both qualified, not exclude the other one from the competition. Similarly, our nationality should be nothing more than a footnote at the bottom of the page.

Ultimately, every person writes differently, draws differently, sees the world differently, reports back on it differently. Whoever wins the job will do the job their own way, in their own inimitable style, and with their own creative slant. There is no such thing as a niche when it comes to talent: however similar the passions, the execution will always be different. And we all see the world in a very different way, however close the perspectives might seem to an outsider. In the case of Sarah and I, this probably has something to do with our heights.

If we're the right candidates - and only if, because I have no idea what the other 46 have to offer - then I'm going to have a renewed faith that we can both get through to the next stage, rather than cynically assuming that we cancel each other out. 

We'll just have to make sure that when we come back we don't both audition for the same girl group. I think that would be pushing our luck.

Blog Weirdness

"So," my grandad said when I popped my head through the door for another Ginger Nut biscuit, "how did the interview day go?"

"Well," I said, pulling my feet on to the couch for a good story-telling session. Thirty seconds later, I abruptly stopped talking. Grandad had glazed over and his smile looked stuck on like the smile on a Mr Potato Head. "You've heard this already, haven't you," I stated flatly.

"Umm..." He looked a little awkward. "Well, yes. I read your blog every day. But that doesn't mean I don't want to hear about it," he added hurriedly.

"I can't tell you a story if you've already heard it!" I exclaimed. 

"Of course you can," Grandad said kindly. "So you had salmon, eh? What type of salmon was it? Was it nice?"

Why are you not ringing me? I texted my sister yesterday. 

Busy with coursework, she texted back. But don't worry, am reading blog.

Not quite same thing, I replied. 

Nearly, though. And PB is douchebag. Will kill when coursework handed in. Love u. 

Mum, on the other hand, appears to be engaging the blog as some kind of third party to every conversation we have. 

"My students are being little... Hang on," she'll say. "Are you going to write about this? Okay, write: my students are being little cherubs. That'll get them on side." 

"Mum," I'll sigh loudly. "Can we please forget the blog exists? It's supposed to be the silent witness, not the prime suspect." 

"Okay," mum will agree. "For the record - and make sure you write this down - mum has agreed not to keep referring to blog during conversations."

You're not a 7.5, emailed a lovely boy I have never met, you're an 11. "What's the swan thing?" another asked. "And some men do ring when they say they will," agreed a third.

"Sorry about the date thing," the BBC rang to say. "Read your blog, didn't realise you were so upset about it. Wouldn't have asked to come if we had known."

"I'm Indecently Beautiful?" emailed Indecently Beautiful Boy. "Awesome." 

The problem is that sometimes I forget that other people can read this little blog. I know that sounds daft - because if I didn't want anyone to read it, I wouldn't put it up on the internet to start with - but it's true. It's like getting undressed without closing my curtains; I forget that the world can see me (and yes, I do this too). Perhaps more significantly, I find it hard to believe that anyone would want to see me. So I chat, and I write, and I take my top off, without a thought for who else is out there or what they can see. And then I'm genuinely surprised that people know all about me before I've even told them. 

I love it, obviously. I'm a writer, so readers are the missing piece of my jigsaw: without them I don't make sense at all. But sometimes it would be nice to have a conversation with my nearest and dearest without being prompted half way through with: "You missed out the bit about the pen." It makes telling stories very difficult when everybody already knows the ending.

Drinks Friday? my friend texted me last night. 

Okay, I messaged back. Out of interest, are you reading my blog?

What blog? he said.

Brilliant, I answered. 

Now I've got one more story to tell.

GU Days

I have a confession to make.

Every now and then (actually a little more regularly than that) I have a secret, special day. I call it, in my head, The GU Day.

When I was a child, "when I grow up" was one of my favourite expressions (along with "why?" and "I hate you," obviously). "When I grow up," I would tell my mum, being dragged away from the fridge, "I'm going to eat whipped cream from the can all day." "When I grow up," I would tell my dad, "I'm going to tell you what to do." "When I grow up," I would tell my English teachers, "I'm going to use as many semi-colons as I want" (they said I was "too young to understand them properly"). Whether it was mud on my face or a good old door slamming or music too loud or a plate full of roast potatoes and gravy and no peas at all or a day spent in bed with Tess of The D'urbervilles, it was all going to be reserved - I promised anyone who would listen - for when I was grown up. "Just you wait," I would warn my mum, wagging my middle finger at her, cream all over my face. "I'll make myself sick."

"I don't doubt it for a minute," my mum would yawn, and then she would send me outside so that I could "eat worms or whatever it is you do out there when I'm not looking".

So, now that I'm old enough to have little lines around my eyes and bills that find me no matter how many times I move house, I cheer myself up by reminding myself of the freedom I've achieved with them. My GU day - Grown Up Day - is one of the things that reminds me I'm still the same person, just a little bigger. 

I never really plan a GU day, actually: I just wake up and know. When I was working, I'd factor it in. I'd have a hot chocolate with marshmallows before work, and I'd play the radio so loudly I'd get told off; I'd walk around the office without my shoes on and drink water out of the toilet sink tap. Now that I'm not working, it's obviously easier. I'll buy a can of whipped cream, write HOLLY on it and spray it into my mouth in front of the telly. I'll get into the car, turn the radio on and see how loudly I can scream, just for fun. I'll go for a walk and not tell anybody where I'm going, or when I'm planning on coming back. I'll go into the garden and walk around in the flower beds in white socks; buy a book and bend the pages over; use every single bit of punctuation I can get my hands on.

It makes me happy, you see. It's a like a secret I have with myself. Ha, I laugh in my head. Ahaha. I have to pay income tax, but look! I can make a cake and eat the mix before it's cooked: all of it! I don't have to just lick the spoon!

And why is that relevant today? Today, I'm sick. I've got a stonking, old fashioned, jigsaw puzzle, chicken soup common cold. And I'm on my own for three days (dad has gone on holiday). So what have I spent the day doing? Blowing my nose and throwing the tissues across the room, and then not picking them up when they don't make the bin. Eating ready-made mash with beans, with a spoon, followed by an entire Terry's Chocolate Orange. Reading magazines in the bath. Watching Scrubs without feeling the need to check the news to see what's going on in the world.  

And how do I feel? Physically ropey; emotionally glorious. Because it's not just about having fun, and proving that my life is my own. Just for a few minutes - just as I'm standing in my grubby white socks with a can of cream aimed down my throat - I'm not 27 year old Holly Smale with a broken laptop and a spent overdraft and a brand new line on her face that will not go away, no matter how much moisturiser I use. No: I'm 5 year old Holly Smale with freckles all over my face and a turned up little nose and the whole world in front of me; 6 year old Holly Smale who wants to be an aeroplane pilot; 7 year old Holly Smale who - even though she knows it's probably not true - still kind of believes in fairies, and checks under flowers now and then just to make sure.

So, although my throat hurts and my nose is running and I have to drink Lemsip - which I hate - today has been a great day, as all GU Days are. Because, in the very smallest way, I managed to reach back into the past and touch the little Me. I managed to tap into the part of Me that shrivelled up on the first Christmas morning where I woke up and wasn't really that excited. And I managed to drag the little Me who couldn't see anything but good in everybody, no matter what she saw to the contrary, back out again.

So, frankly, even though I'm as sick as a dog, it was a good day: and I can't wait 'til the next one. Because they make the fact that I'm so much older - and not a lot wiser - so, so much easier to bear.

The Apprentice

Last night, I watched The Apprentice with a strange sinking feeling in my stomach. One dream job, one large wage, too many applicants. Everybody made to look rather silly on camera as they try not to elbow each other in the face in front of Alan Sugar. It wasn't too difficult to work out why my cheese muffin was poised in front of my mouth in shock.

"I would rather die than apply for The Apprentice," I remember stoically telling my friend last year. "It's degrading."

Last night, while my muffin was still in mid-air, said friend texted me.

U realise ur in The Apprentice, she wrote, except the bikini clad version.

Am not, I texted back. Is rubbish, I texted again in a panic, putting my muffin down. 

Are, she responded. And then my phone beeped again. Ahahahaha, she added.

Is about talent, I texted back. Not same at all. Nothing like it.

Ahahahaha she texted back, so I turned my phone off.

The two groups - I argued internally for the rest of the programme - are polar opposites. TBJITW candidates are - by and large - the slightly scruffy creative types, with a deep and inherent love of waterfalls, butterflies and 'that moment when the sun hits the water just right'. TA candidates, on the other hand, are fiercely booted, fond of shirts that 'jazz' up their suits and keen on comparing profits to orgasms. Put a TBJITWer in a room with Alan Sugar, and we'll tell him to "totally, like, chill, man," before adding that we "won't be spoken to like that, dude," and leaving the room in a flip-flopped strop. Ask a TAer if he scuba dives or has an interest in the local people, and they'll claim that it is "largely irrelevant" and aggressively ask if you want to "step outside for a minute to discuss it further". 

We share nothing, I thought as I watched my television in vague horror: and that included intelligence (charging £300 to clean three cars?), dress sense (purple satin?) and perspective on life ("This is what it's all about," one of the male candidates sighed as he entered the fish-tanked, plasma-screened accommodation, running his fingers greedily along the white leather couch). I watched them talk about themselves continuously, compare themselves with each other continuously, push forward their own meagre attributes continuously, however debatable they were. I watched them talk over each other to try and make themselves heard, glare at each other over a table, and rip each other apart as soon as they left a room. All for what? The chance at a job that most of them wouldn't be skilled enough to do, even if they got it.

Ahahahah, my friend's text kept repeating in my head. Ahahaha. Because just how different are we, really? Take away the details, and underneath is a pretty similar animal. TBJITWers might be a little more floopy, a little more soya milk, a little more Let Me Ride An Ostrich, but we're also fiercely ambitious: we wouldn't be here if we weren't. And TAers - similarly - just want something that's going to change their lives and help them achieve their dreams. They want to escape as well, even if it's just to a white-carpeted apartment in North London. 

Okay, so we go about it in different ways - and in very different outfits - but scrape the surface with a couple of fingernails and it's the same story: a competition to win a life that you wouldn't otherwise get, but believe you deserve. And yes, the winner of TBJITW will be a 'creative, outdoorsy' type, and the winner of TA will be a 'businessy, indoorsy type', but what difference does that make in the grander scale of things?

Indoors or outdoors, stories or excel sheets, fish-tanks or open water, we're all people who are prepared to publicly compete for our dreams. And, frankly, there isn't a satin shirt in the world that can cover that up.  

Mum complains

My mum is not happy with the below post.

"I come across as really mean," she complained. "I sound like a witch."
"Don't be silly," I said. "Witches don't eat toast."
"You left out a lot of the conversation," she added, ignoring me. "For instance, you didn't mention the bit where I said I wished I was there to give you a cuddle."
"It wasn't really relevant, mum," I pointed out.
"I said it twice, though. I said I wanted to give you a cuddle twice. And you didn't even mention it."
"Mum," I said patiently. "I have to edit. And the cuddles didn't really fit into the story."
"But they make me sound less mean," she said miserably. I heard her eat another piece of toast.
"Are you still eating toast?" I asked.
"It's been a long day. Also, you spelt publically wrong. It's publicly. You've done that twice now."
"Oh crap. Are you sure?"
"Pretty sure, yes. I'm an English teacher."
"Oh yeah. Okay, I'll change it. I'm freestyling: there's no spell check. Pretty impressive, ey? In this day and age, I think that's pretty impressive."
"Not really," mum said tiredly. "Anyway. Big cuddles: I love you. Night sweetheart."
"Night," I said.

You see, mum? I didn't leave out the cuddles that time. You just have to choose which cuddles fit the story, that's all.