After decades of urban sophistication, career hopping, and ambitious cocktail swilling, I traded it all for 11th hour parenthood. Apparently you can’t just hand in your 2 weeks’ notice for this one and there is no vacation..

About a year ago I wrote a post about going to see a life coach, and I included a copy of a poem – Cargo – that he had given me, by Greg Kimura.

It was very inspiring and I took the words very much to heart. In fact you could say that it kick-started me into getting back to the blog, and also to focusing, finally, on writing my novel which has actually taken over my life and thoughts in the way that music used to.

This for me is an ecstatic return of the creative muse. I had felt somewhat bereft and flat in this regard after I had the children – I didn’t really want to write music very much anymore – I would, certainly, if there was a large cheque attached to the project, but I just couldn’t be arsed to go into the dark room with the machines that go ping unless I absolutely had to which is completely different from earlier years when you could barely coax me out of the studio. I tinkered about with various things, but nothing really gripped me in a convincing and lasting manner until this book started to unfold in my mind and on paper. I’m obsessed (in a good way, I hope!). I feel as if the real me is finally back, and this makes all of the rest of life so much more pleasant, and any trials and tribulations I may encounter seem far less traumatic than they might otherwise because I am living this other life in my head that is untouchable and completely of my own making.

I sound a bit odd, I know. But I am a bit odd, to be honest. I just embrace it and try to get on with things.

Anyway, back to the subject of this post.

I was in London a couple of weeks ago, mostly to do some boring administration things in regard to my house and while I was there I took the opportunity to shop myself stupid at the January sales – may I just say, John Lewis; I love you.
I stayed partly with family and partly up in town at my club. (I’m just going to say that again because it makes me feel VERY IMPORTANT like a posh gentleman from 1892 or something..) I was staying up in town at my club, and to my great surprise and delight, I got an email from Greg Kimura.

Yes! That’s right, the poet who wrote Cargo!

Actually, to be honest, when I first saw his name in my inbox I thought

“Oh no! I didn’t think to write and ask him if I could put his poem up! That was rude! And bad! He’s found out and now he’s mad! EEK!”

But it wasn’t that at all.

He had found his poem on my blog, but far from being annoyed, he was very gracious and complimentary. In fact he said he was looking forward to reading my book (!!) and would I like a copy of his poetry book?

YES PLEASE!

So I sent him my address and yesterday the book arrived with a lovely personal inscription.

Thank you, Greg!

I recommend it highly, and you can buy your own copy here 

The universe is full of unexpected gifts. Especially when you are brave enough to explore your own.

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Now that I’ve failed to potty train the cat, I can go back to more important projects like continuing with my novel.

I’ve been quite busy with that which is partly why I’ve neglected the blog so much for the past few months – there seems to be only so many words I have per day, unless you count:

“Five, can you please get dressed and come down to breakfast”

“Eight, can you stop reading, get dressed, and come down to breakfast”

because I say those words maybe 30 times PER MORNING and then I shout them another 30 times before I physically pull books out of people’s hands, shove underwear into them,  and make unpleasant threats involving the withholding of  sugar, electronics, and time with the kitten.

I’m not sure how I became that person. She’s quite horrible and so are her children.

Once they’re at school I can become that interesting, quiet woman who has to boil the kettle several times before making a pot of tea because she gets distracted by other tasks, and then, finally, with a pot of lapsang and my delicious ginger kitten, I can settle in to a few hours of writing my book.*

I don’t know when I’ll finish this book. I am not a speedy writer but I am a steady one, and the plot’s rather complicated, plus there’s a pictorial aspect to it I haven’t quite worked out yet, BUT. I will get there. I’m probably a third of the way through?

Sometimes when I tell people I’m writing a book they give me a funny  look, like I’ve told them I’m building a spaceship out of cardboard boxes and I’m planning on flying to the moon next week. Then they ask me what I ‘really’ do. Or who my publisher is. When I say I don’t have one yet, not looking right now because I’m not ready, and besides that isn’t really the point for me, the look often turns to pity (eg be nice to poor deluded lady, it’s either that, basket weaving or intense therapy for her to keep her off the streets, btw don’t let her have a gun).

I don’t struggle with this as much as I might have done in earlier years. I remember some folks being the same back when I was a young musician, singing in crappy wine bars, sequencing synths on my 1 meg Atari (ha!) and sending out (showing my age) demo tapes which nobody listened to or listened to, laughed, and threw in the bin. Then, when I finally got a record deal and some commercial success, suddenly I was a ‘real’ musician. As if during the struggling pot noodle years I was only pretending.

Of course it’s possible that this is all in my head – so much stuff is (I may need a larger drive to hold all the drivel thats accumulated over the years), but even if it is, I still have to live with it, manage it, and get it out the way so I can actually tell the story I’m trying to write. And it needs to be told.

I hope that whomever is left reading my little blog (all 4 of you?) will bear with me – I’m going to keep trying to post, even if it’s just about little things, and one day, there will be something more substantial, and more interesting to read.

* Unfortunately I also spend quite a bit of time reading the news, answering email and looking at Facebook, then feeling guilty about it and having to make another pot of tea because the first one went cold before I remembered to pour a cup.

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I took Tabasco for his rabies and final FLV shot the other day and I asked our vet about the toilet training. She, apparently, had trained her Siamese cat to use the toilet.

It took her a year and a half.

A YEAR AND A HALF???

No. I’m not cleaning the bathroom and picking poo off the floor every single day for eighteen months.

She also said that, on balance, if we didn’t live on a busy road (we don’t) and we ‘clicker trained’ him to come when we wanted him to, he’d be fine as an indoor/outdoor cat. It’s safer to keep them in, but if he wants to go out – and he does (and so does Husband) -then that’s what one should do.

I’ll wait until I get back from England to start the clicker training, take him out slowly, bit by bit, and then just hope for the best. We do love him so. What other cat plays ‘fetch’?

In the meantime, the litter tray is back and, compared to the toilet seat thingy, it’s really not that bad.

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Bad news first: He did a giant wee on a freshly washed basket of laundry.

AGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

(at least I hadn’t folded it yet)

Good news: When I shut him in the loo for 10 minutes he used the amber pan for both kinds of elimination.

What am I to extract from this lesson? Don’t leave laundry lying around? Shut him in the loo until the little bastard is forced to crap? Give up like any normal person and accept that Husband is right and he’s going to be an indoor/outdoor cat anyway as soon as the weather is nice and the windows get opened on a regular basis?

I’m taking him for a rabies shot today, just in case.

But I’m still going to hide my clean laundry and persevere with the amber pan (they call me the amber gambler..)

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He has been very curious about the hole in the amber toilet seat and clearly very suspicious of the whole (hole) thing.

I’ve found him mewling in there a few times and scratching at the litter and peering into the water but finally tonight I found some droppings on the floor beside the commode (ugh) and him looking very puzzled by the entire thing, so gritted my teeth, got a piece of toilet paper and picked up the pieces, and put them into the water.
He was fascinated by this and immediately jumped up to have a look. Then, encouragingly, he scratched some litter on top of them and sort of moved his body around as if he was looking for a place to do a wee.

Then I did what I said I absolutely wasn’t going to do – I quickly positioned his legs so that his bum was in the right place and he weed right into the water!

It’s actually pathetic the enormous triumph I felt at hearing the little tinkling sound it made.

He seemed rather pleased with himself and scratched some more litter on top of it and then walked around the seat a few times before jumping down and cleaning himself.

Is this progress?

Please God, yes.

By the way, I am having a hilarious email correspondence with a PR person who insists she thinks I have a very well maintained blog (proof itself that she is not a regular reader) and is very keen to write something for me. I told her it was a personal blog and I didn’t have guest posts or promoted content but she insists that it will be ‘good for my readers’ to ‘know the value of the cartoon network’ and maybe she’d write something that pertains to my site, maybe something about kids.  I am considering writing to her asking if they have any cartoons about shitting cats, and if so, please write a piece on that and I’ll let her have a link for £50.

Seems fair?

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No missing kids here, but we have progressed from the ‘red pan’ to the ‘amber pan’ which has a small aperture at the center so that Tabasco can learn to deposit his excess into the water rather than the litter.

This is the theory.

So far he’s sat on the edge of the seat, clearly wondering how to get his head inside the hole to have a drink.

I went out for a few hours this morning and when I got back he’d kicked a bit of the (flushable) litter into the hole so something has happened but it’s not clear what.   I’m dreading finding a poo on the floor or the toilet seat again, but as I’m not quite at the point where I’m going to physically teach him how to crap myself, I’m holding out for his great intelligence (??) to point his bottom in the right direction.

More later

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I thought I was being quite clever, subtly reducing the amount of litter in the ‘red’ pan before switching to ‘amber’ which has a hole in the center (if you’re totally baffled by this statement, start here), but it turned out not to be quite as brilliant as I thought.  Or maybe it was a clever move but Tabasco got the wrong end of the stick – or the wrong side of the toilet seat because I came into ‘his’ bathroom this morning to find some fragrant brown lumps on the floor just beside the loo. Clearly he had perched on the seat but put his bum in the opposite-to-ideal direction.

Yuck.

Fortunately the floor is tiled and it wasn’t a horrendous mess to clear up – actually less messy than the scatter of litter everywhere and I’m hoping that this is a one-off mistake that can be corrected in time. At least he knows where to sit, right?

I read some literature about cat elimination (wait, that doesn’t sound right, – I mean the way cats eliminate, not feline assassination) and apparently when they’re weeing they can move around but once they settle in for a poo they sort of freeze in position and one is advised to go and physically reposition them so that they know the right place to dump the droppings. It also said one might have to wait around a bit – stalk the cat until he feels the urge to take a crap – so that this correction can be achieved.

Are they fucking kidding? 

I’m supposed to hover by the bathroom door hoping the time is right so I can pounce on him and fiddle about with the back legs of an animal that is in the actual live process of shitting?

EEEEEUUUUUUWWWWW!

Oh sorry, did I put you off your lunch?

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I think Tabasco may be a genius.

Okay, he’s not a genius but he DID figure out how to use the LitterKwitter ™ almost immediately and has used it several times for, erm, both kinds of elimination (yes he took a dump as well as a couple of wazzes) and I duly cleaned up after him (ugh) and made it all nice and tidy afterwards.

This is the bit I don’t like.

However, I’m going to stay on track and in a week I will switch to the ‘amber’ seat with the hole in the center and we’ll see how that goes. I do note that he doesn’t actually leave any deposits in the center of the seat. They’re more off to the side (though not on the actual toilet seat itself) so I’m not sure he’s going to kick any stuff into the hole after he craps it out, but time will tell.

In the meantime. Here is a picture you didn’t need to see.

BTW. The picture behind the toilet is a signed Gilbert & George poster from the  Naked Shit exhibition that I attended some years ago at the South London Gallery in Peckham. It seemed an apt setting and I enjoy the discomfort it provides my American guests.

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