Thursday 22 October 2009

Lateral Displacement Complex

I fear I am displaced. Laterally.

I feel that I'm in the right time - I feel very strongly that I do belong to the present - only not to this particular present.

I believe that I belong to a different version of the present: one that can only be reached if you travel there directly from a certain time on a certain day in 1976.

I wonder: has there ever been a way to get back home?

Tuesday 6 October 2009

Diary of a Lady Pornographer - Porn Holiday

I've said it before and I'll say it again, a pornographer's work is never done. Honestly, keeping you folks' peckers up is a more relentless task than stoking a steam engine. You get one pile of wankfuel shovelled into the furnace and just as you've wiped the lipgloss from your nipples and wrapped yourself in a kimono, down goes the blaze and you have to start all over again. Chuh. What a life.

I spent last weekend taking Polaroids of myself in front of the Kremlin, dressed as a topless news correspondent ('80s-style - hence the aforementioned lipgloss). It was a demanding shoot, as you would imagine, so I was really looking forward to taking a well-earned break in Amsterdam this weekend. All week, I kept imagining myself packing my case, casually catching sight of my nipple gloss and just tossing it over my shoulder with a musical peal of laughter, knowing I wouldn't be needing it. I also pictured myself skipping through the red light district dressed in some sort of voluminous jumper and maybe even trainers. I wanted to revel in the luxury of letting the other girls do all the gruelling panting and cavorting for a change. Holiday! A real proper holiday from all that pesky porn-making.

But I hadn't reckoned on Um Chief, the Lady Carmen. Hardly had the flights been booked than her little list plopped into my mailbox. "When we're in Amsterdam, Mischief darling, there are a few little appointments we need to squeeze in."

Picture my dismay, Readers. Instead having a fantastic time not brushing my hair until I look like a manner of vagrant muppet squirrel, it looks like muggins here will have to spend a whole day writhing in front of a camera crew, watching young men masturbating and licking other ladies' nipples. Damn, damn, damn and blast it! Don't you just hate it when these things happen? Take a tip from me, Readers: never go on holiday with a collegue - especially not another lady pornographer.

Friday 2 October 2009

Of Rabbit Holes and Giant Shoes

You could say that this is my special place now: inside a Pola frame.

I've had many hideouts over the years - real physical places. Forest clearings and remote valleys, hen coops, tree tops, overgrown gardens, deserted houses and broken-down cars. There were places I had to crawl into through brambles and nettles, places I had to climb up to or break into when noone was looking. And I was forever hollowing out bunkers in the middle of haystacks; even now, that sweet dusty summer scent still sends an instant bolt of joy to my heart. I've just always loved hiding places. That feeling of being untraceable and unreachable, always having a secret rabbit hole to tumble into, always having the power to slip beyond the clutches of the everyday world.

But it seems as though there are no such places left for me to run to now - not in the physical world, anyway. And I think it all has something to do with growing up. I mean, I dread to think how a farmer would react today if he found me - a fully-grown lady - bunkered in his haystack. After a certain age, you can't just wander off and hide from life. It's not the done thing.

When you're a kid, you think people won't be able to lord it over you when you get older. You think you'll finally have all the freedoms you yearn for. You'll eat ice-cream for breakfast and live in a giant shoe with a robot and a baby giraffe. But when you grow up, you discover that the reverse is the case. You find out that there's actually even more stuff you're not supposed to do - and now you're not even supposed to feel like doing it anymore.

Grown-ups are so devious. They turn you into one of them and then they die.

But anyway, just because I'm one of them now, it doesn't follow that I no longer want or need my hideouts. In fact, I can think of a multitude of things I don't ever intend to grow out of. I want the best of both worlds. I want the car keys and the credit cards as well as the giant shoe, the robot and the baby giraffe. I don't actually care if that's odd.

And that's why I keep running into this little white square. It's my kingdom, my secret garden, my fortress against the world. It's the only place I have left to run to. And in my Polaroid Wonderland, even though I've grown tall enough to reach the key, I'm somehow still small enough to fit through the door; only I can get in; they can't get me, you can't get me, and the person I was meant to turn into can't ever get me there.