IT

Hello friends. How are you all?  Well I have been been looking for it everywhere. ''It?'' What do you mean ''it''? Well in this case, ''it'' is my other name. Or should I say names. Most people call me Ann Marie because that is my name but I am also called Anna, Ana, Ana Maria, Ann, Anne, Maria, and so on and so forth, you know, the same name as Santa Ana the one who will bend over backwards if you are in need of a special favour. Yet not a lot of people know that I have these other names. What names? Those other names that are reserved for those dumbass, public nuisance dunces who call me up during my siesta and want to know who they are talking to. Yes that siesta, the one I am or was having now 'cos it's stinking hot outside and everything and everyone is on fooking fire as we speak. Those numbskulls who call me wondering if I would like to participate in a survey on some shit I will never buy cos I have no money to spare on account of the cost of living being sky bloody high and all that. Things like bottled water. Bottled water!! Did you ever think you would drink the stuff? I always give them a piece of my wayward mind I can tell you. So I found them...what a relief. Here they are. Written on the back of a beer mat I was gifted in Tossa de Mar. The names I use when the cold callers call and ask who they are speaking to. Remember, I always tell them they are speaking to me, the owner of the brothel, AKA Adolfa Bonifacio Ecolastica Homobona Buenaventura just before they hang up. 

Spain calling. Everyone's favourite renegade here. Well, it's exhausting and boring when it's stinking hot and you are stuck in town. All I can do is loll about in my smalls while H watches TV or looks at real estate in the other room. Loll about as in lying down spending my time idly and not laughing out loud literally. From time to time H will shout something from the salon, which only reminds me that we have finally integrated. For years if we had anything to say to each other when not in the same room we would stand up and walk a few feet to voice in hushed tones. Now we just bellow out for all to hear. Stuff like, ''well you wanted to live in the tropics'' from him to, ''no I wouldn't like to live in a gated community in Andalucia thank you very much'', from me. Heat and boredom. I've spent hours, years probably, staring into space drifting between a Zen like state and unmitigated anxiety.  I am, and I quote a frame of reference friends and I would say way back in our salad days, ''still not Prime Minister''. This was an ill-suited phrase we flippantly remarked, to gauge whether we were any nearer the goals we had in life while still in our twenties. We knew we were never going to be PM but nevertheless had ambitions to succeed in some great way that might make it all worthwhile. Most of us from that generation are now at the peak of our abilities, but entering our cake and cava days and can't imagine wanting to become the leader of a nation. And yet looking at the latest bunch of contenders in the UK I am now convinced we should have gone for the job. I don't need to be mean but the departing one should have stuck to the day job of being a journalist, instead of thinking it was all going to be as easy as being London mayor. Let's face it, he was only in it for the sex and biscuits. As far as I'm concerned, I can't stand the bastard. He was totally unfit for office but it's obvious where he was coming from. He thought it was all going to be a barrel of laughs at everyone else's expense and he might have got away with it if there hadn't been a pandemic. He now escapes the chaos of an aimless domestic drama taking place on an island stuck out in the Atlantic with a clump of contestants ripping each other apart to become the next British PM. Possessed, maniacal, self pollinating half wits. It won't last. Further developments are expected. More later. 

I have just sat through an episode of PMQs so you don't have to. It seems the greased piglet, Boris ''the cock''Johnson, AKA the dirty ol' hobgoblin aint going anywhere. How unchivalrous of anyone to think he would. As for the others. Look at them, the rotten stinking lot of 'em, trying to sell themselves as Paragons of Virtue. I haven't forgotten any of it!! Keep watching for more of the bullshit merchant extraordinaire. 

Haven't been on here so much. Too much going on and then there are the malaprops...Husband has mentioned in passing that he is ''gender fluent''. This is from a man who said he didn't care what people got up to sexually, as long as it was between ''condescending adults''!!

I dreamt about the singer Tom Waits. I am going to write about it ASAP. I take it as a sign. A creative sign judging from what happened in the dream. Copies of the dream will be available on paper.

Let's watch the Power of the Dog he said. So that we could have an opinion at least he wised. About thirty minutes in I wondered if it was me. 'Is it me or do you feel like you are waiting for a train?' He said he wasn't sure where it was going to be honest. The film or my train. About ten minutes later I started to have weird feelings. Psychopathic even. A strange mix of wanting to kill but anchored by the only sane part, urging me to keep going for the sake of humanity. Watch it so that they don't have to kind of thing. Without giving too much away, at one point a woman starts to play Strauss's Radetzky Waltz on the piano. I say play but she stop starts as she is a bit rusty. I start to identify with one of the male characters who looks like he could kill someone and remarks that her playing sets the teeth on edge. I start mimicking the waltz. Vocally, we don't have a piano. Stop start. Start stop. Mr van de Ven gives me a worried look mainly because telepathically we both know that this is what I will do from now on to wind him up if needs be. If you don't know the waltz it is the kind of music that makes you feel like going out and conquering the world. After listening to my version you will need therapy. We reach the end, not of our relationship but are relieved and happy to talk about how it all made sense but was quite painful getting there. The end of the film, not us. I read a review today which said that it requires several viewings to understand the characters better. Again, I mean the film, not me and him. Don't say you were not warned. 

The other day a class of teenage girls were reading an article on food and the word 'average' came up. ''What's this word 'average'?'' one of them asks me and to save time I translated it into Spanish. There was a sea of blank looks as one by one they all told me this word doesn't exist. I looked it up in the dictionary thinking that I'd got it wrong but they still weren't convinced. Then I realised. There is no average in Spain. There is no average man, woman, child, situation, day and so on. Everything is one extreme or the other. Almost always the opposite amount or degree beyond what is normal or reasonable. Nothing is ever a dull moment. I tried to give examples of 'average' and this kicked off a discussion that anyone new to the scene would think was a riot what with the whole class shouting to be heard. This can be very draining to an outsider or invigorating if you join in and try to drown out everyone else's opinion with your own. Whatever it is, it is life affirming and nothing average about it. In the end I drew an imaginary line and chose intelligence as the word we would use to get an understanding of it all. I started to say that above the line was highly intelligent, genius etc but was stopped short by one girl who interrupted and said 'oh I get it, and below that line is what most people are, 'stupid!'  ( Thank God for punctuation!)