oneword.com

My aunt died two weeks ago. I didn’t make it to the funeral – my daughter’s twins arrived. A strange juxtaposition of dying and arriving. My cousins understood – they stood by the graveside without my arms around them, then sent messages of congratulations to me. Sometimes families are wonderful.

Posted By Joey On 06.12.2011 @ 9:25 am

My daughter is a teacher. She’s tiny and fiery, and I suspect her children are quietly afraid of her. But they learn – they dare not learn. which pleases parents and important people like that. And she loves them really!

Posted By Joey On 06.09.2011 @ 1:21 pm

a good time to slap me in the face with forgetting. My daughter’s twins are just a week old; I’ve had about 3 hours sleep in the last 48, and my brain is like mush – as I write I have one twin – mercifully quiet – on my lap. I am forgetting the rest of the world.

Posted By Joey On 06.08.2011 @ 6:58 am

I think of plaid as like tartan, but it’s not – at least i think it’s not. so here I am wittering about something I can’t quite define – except I know its something to do with fabric. Time for the dictionary.

Posted By Joey On 06.05.2011 @ 11:28 am

Our teachers had chalkboards when I was at school. They have white boards and interactive things now But my grandson has a chalkboard. he drew a picture of me on it. I’ll treasure it. One day he may be a Picasso.

Posted By Joey On 06.04.2011 @ 11:26 am

Ah – the radio. That reminds me – I must catch up with The Archers. i suppose most people don’t ‘get’ radio – or maybe it’s a generational thing. But someone mumbling away in the corner, Radio 4 on quietly, Test Match Special – well, then I know I’m home.

Posted By Joey On 06.03.2011 @ 12:07 pm

I’m sure this was yesterday’s word. Or is there a time zone-thing, and it’s still yesterday where you are. That’s the trouble with time – it’s not a static, understood thing; though it thinks it is an anchor it is little more than an illusion.

Posted By Joey On 06.02.2011 @ 3:03 am

I went round the world with a backpack! Me – an old woman – not that anyone noticed me, of course, as the great thing about being older is being invisible. Even with a bloody great backpack on my back. Got really good at packing it – amazing how little you need when you have to carry it for a year!

Posted By Joey On 06.01.2011 @ 11:29 am

Difficult one, this. I think I confuse it with collage – montage is the same but with music? Is that it? I’ll have to make a dash for the dictionary when this minute is up – I’m obviously wittering about something I know nothing about!

Posted By Joey On 05.31.2011 @ 1:21 pm

Sideburns are truly 1950s – teddy boys had them, and winklepickers, and brylcream. Yes – I remember, though via my elder brother – he’s 6 years older than me, and taught me to jive in the kitchen so he could practise before going to dances!

Posted By Joey On 05.30.2011 @ 4:33 am

Hard to get in touch with despair, today. I’ve known it in the past, of course – haven’t we all? But, even though the sky threatens rain and I’ve scurried in from the wind in the garden, i can’t feel despair today. Only excitement – the babies are coming . . .

Posted By joey On 05.29.2011 @ 5:48 am

My neighbour grows mint in her garden. She didn’t realise it is codeword for triffid – and has crept through her roses, assaulted the delphiniums, and os now making a determined intrusion on the veg patch. Eat it, she tells me, as if it were possible to eat that much mint.

Posted By Joey On 05.28.2011 @ 1:38 am

Voting takes place in a polling booth – a little wooden contraption that a puff of wind would take care of if it were inside. Sometimes it smells dusty, but often it smells of wood. But doesn’t detract from trying to find someone responsible to vote for!

Posted By joey On 05.25.2011 @ 9:58 am

Pretzel – not so common in the UK – they remind me of George Bush and his choking accident, which I probably shouldn’t comment on. Let’s just say it was amusing. Can’t quite see why it was news!

Posted By Joey On 05.23.2011 @ 9:53 am

I read the Grapes of Wrath while I was in America. I read it years ago, but a recent road trip seemed like the best possible context to read it again. And as wonderful as I thought the first time. Now to read Travels with Charley – ok, so Steinbeck didn’t spend every night in his green van, but I still expecting a great book!

Posted By joey On 05.22.2011 @ 8:10 am

I am a mole and I live in a hole – there, that gives my age away. I bet all you bright young things have no idea what I’m talking about. But when I was a child there was this song – and that was the chorus, sung in a deep, underground sort of voice, and we used to go sing it over and over, and it so annoyed my mother.

Posted By joey On 05.19.2011 @ 2:17 am

tempted – by everything. Like sitting in the garden when I ought to be writing. Like reading when I ought to be writing. And then I write – and nothing can tempt me away from it. except this site, maybe . . .

Posted By joey On 05.18.2011 @ 2:50 am

I am curious about – well, everything? No, not cars, or bits of metal, or how machines in general work. But about people, and how they make sense of everything, how they tell their stories. Why they organise families as they do. the songs they sing.

Posted By joey On 05.17.2011 @ 4:39 am

About what “that” person is thinks about me, curious if she even thinks about me. Curious if her lips are soft and warm.

Posted By Joey On 05.16.2011 @ 6:48 pm

I’m sure there’s something I’ve forgotten to do today. Something that sank with the wine last night and can’t quite resurface. My mother always said if you forget something go back to where you were when you last had it. so – should I open another bottle?

Posted By joey On 05.16.2011 @ 3:20 am

I wish – it tastes of nothing much, and then hits the necessary bits and sends you reeling. the wish bit – I wish it tasted better. But I don’t suppose it matters. I have enough wine to keep me going.

Posted By joey On 05.14.2011 @ 12:39 pm

glowing – in the dark, maybe. Like fireflies. I saw fireflies once, with the Maori in New Zealand, which is as wonderful as it sounds. they were like little dancing lights in the dark – and it was just magic! or it can mean sweaty. But fireflies are much more romantic.

Posted By joey On 05.13.2011 @ 6:40 am

I’m wavering right now. I ought to go for a walk – stretch my legs, get away from the wretched computer. But there is something compulsive about the screen – maybe there’ll be a wonderful email, offering a prize, accepting a story, suggesting I’m a wonderful writer . . . I must go for a walk!

Posted By joey On 05.08.2011 @ 7:04 am

the heel is apart of your foot. lt is also the part of a shoe. like high-heels, they suck, but they make you taller and help your legs look great. Heels are nice, sometimes. You always need a heel. Heel rhymes with peel

Posted By joey On 05.07.2011 @ 6:33 am

Interesting – the first definition to spring to mind was a 1960s use of the word, meaning a man who somehow double-crossed his girlfriend. On a more mundane level, it’s a reminder to see a podiatrist!

Posted By joey On 05.07.2011 @ 6:32 am

guyliner. He is wearing guyliner. Batting his eyelashes in a playful pout, he asks, “What?” I grimace and look away. Could you -be- any more homosexual?

Posted By Joey On 05.05.2011 @ 8:26 pm

I bought a roll of fabric a few years ago that rolls into a bandana, stretches to be a scarf to hold my hair when the wind blows, even folds into a hat. What a great use of a tube!

Posted By joey On 05.03.2011 @ 4:51 am

Lights – fluorescent lights. Hate them. That cold glow they give. I used to work in an office with the lights on all day – apart from that awful hum, a drone that ate into our hearing, there was a light that made us all look as if we had flu.

Posted By joey On 05.02.2011 @ 7:13 am

Four-leafed variety? The type that Irishmen sing about buy never turn up in my fields. By mother used to sing a song about a four-leafed clover; I suspect it began life in music halls, and ended over the washing up in our grubby kitchen.

Posted By joey On 05.01.2011 @ 6:44 am

i sing in a chorus – a wonderful choir. We have no auditions, so anyone can have a go. One of the tenors is deaf, but he can count so comes in at the right time, though his note can be anywhere. And an alto can be a bit hit and miss. But we love it, and even managed a creditable rendition of Mozart’s requiem!

Posted By joey On 04.30.2011 @ 9:36 am