Topsy-turvy, be mine

It's a strange world, this one we live in, a twirly-whirly ride of ups and downs over which, sometimes, we think we have control and, most of the time, we realise we have none. Whatsoever. I'm quite glad of that, though. There is magic everywhere.

Gadzooks, I'd hate to feel like I had any kind of control. Out-of-control has always appealed, despite my being a particularly organised sort. Organised in some aspects, the ones that, I am hoping, hoping, hoping, allow the rest to be completely and utterly and mind-blowingly, topsy-turvy all over the place.

The fat moon laughs at me from high in the sky, taunting and teasing.

I'm craving topsy-turvy, I am.

Warm nights with Black Swan

Black Swan. The movie, with Natalie Portman, who outdoes herself playing a severely psychologically screwy ballerina. It’s not my kind of movie normally, it being termed a ‘psychosexual thriller’ or some such movie jargon, but I’m being wild (rowr) and branching out. I did need to close my eyes in certain parts because, well, I’m a sissy. I’m glad I went to watch it, though. Firstly because of the unrelenting heat we’re having and the contradictory morgue-like temperature of the cinema and secondly because watching acting talent like Natalie Portman’s is a treat.

The first reason – the coolth bit- was reinforced by the fact that it was shown in the old cinema here in The City Beneath the Mountain. I love it there. They show art movies and the cinema is huge and airy and has uncomfortable old seats and the sound isn’t brilliant but you can buy a cold beer and drink it in the movie and the (bad) sound isn’t all muffled and airless like the new (and amazing too) wall-to-wall-to-ceiling carpeted surround-sound new types.

The experience was further improved by the daughter of the lady working there (aged 3) spending a very long time pushing all the seats down, row-by-row, before the movie started. We helped her find her (very pink) shoes that she’d shed with wild abandon when her mother came to fetch her before the definitely not suitable for 3-year olds movie started.

And then Wild Swan, a grittily filmed, bone-chilling (or maybe that was the air con?) account of the search for perfection of a ballerina, motivated by her mother’s failings as one, and resulting in horror of the highest degree. It wriggled down into me and made me think. A stick-thin, sinewed Natalie Portman portrayed her with a brilliance that shone. It left me feeling a little raw.

Then a plate of pasta and a glass of wine at a restaurant outside. The warm Summer night defrosted us from our cinema-induced chill and I wished on the first star way up there next to the fattening moon.

My first love returns by dream

On Saturday night I dreamt of my first love. Probably because Stalkbook had alerted me to the fact that it was his birthday. You've got to love how Stalkbook has allowed us to become that good kind of friend who never forgets birthdays (something I am loathe to admit that I was - the forgetting type. With even more loathing I have to admit that even with Stalkbook telling me, over there in the corner, that it's Aunt Mabel's birthday, sometimes I still forget to phone. Oops.)

Anyway, my first love was of the stuff that Sweet Valley High novels are made of (am I dating myself?), but with a little bit of scandal thrown in. First, the SVH bits: he was the younger brother of a good varsity friend of mine. The first time I saw him, he came to visit with his brother and I literally had to stop myself drooling, as metaphorical stars flittered from above his head, bright light shining through his blonde locks from behind him. It turned out to be the neon light in the passage, but still.

A couple of months (and the end of year vacation) later found us serendipitously stranded in the nearby seaside village for the night, thanks to my fabulously unfaithful emerald green 1975 Ford Escort. We kissed for the first time in the sand on a moonlit beach, waves crashing, young naive hearts beating. It was lovely, and was the beginning of a beautiful thing that lasted almost two years.

I became one of his wonderful family (who lived in our varsity town). They embraced me, immediately - unconditionally. I am still friends with them all. I was surprised by their unconditional embracing, though, because (here comes the scandal)... I was the Older Woman. While I was ever so grown-uppedly in my second year of university, first love was but a schoolboy (admittedly in his final year.)

When I think of it now, the hero-worship he must've had from the pimply teenage boys in his class when I'd drop him back at school in my emerald green 1975 Ford Escort after taking him back to my digs for 'lunch' - his hair dishevelled, his tell-tale grin. He was just SO cute in his school uniform!

We grew up together really (well, a bit) in that time and our passion and intensity was that of only first love - bright, colourful, naively complicated, tempestuously calm. He was my first for many, many things, and it was wonderful. We were inseperable for that time.

In my dream, he had on a top that had been through the wash and was just too small for him, and I was pushing my hands and arms in under it to stretch it and make it fit. There's no understanding the sub-concious, is there?