Pip Pip! Cheerio!

by Alexa on November 2, 2009

In honour of the fact that I appeared yesterday in the Sunday Times, I am going to insert the letter U and replace the letter Z as necessary to make any new British readers feel at home. I don’t foresee a part of the entry in which I mention the back storage compartment of a car, but if there is one, I shall use the term “~~bonnet~~” “boot” (thank you, intrepid reader!)

You can read the article online, but only those of you who have access to the hard copy will be able to see the lovely layout, with pictures, including one of my beloved Waffle HOLDING a waffle. There was one of me as well—I have taken a screenshot of the PDF so it is blurry, but you get the general idea. (The general idea being me! In the Sunday Times!)

(Note the the TV tuned to R&B Classics, to soothe the baby.) .

I was frankly terrified at hearing they planned to photograph me—I’d said I wouldn’t mind, but impressed upon them that I wasn’t photogenic, figuring that would be the end of it. But no! A photographer was coming, and could I be ready the next day?

I called my friend Fernanda in a panic, and she proceeded to list all the people who were likely to see the article.

“David Bowie will read it,” she said, “and Iman.”

“I don’t have anything to wear!” I moaned, “Oh, god, I have to CLEAN.”

“Zadie Smith will read it. So will Margaret Thatcher—or at least, someone will read it to her. Sid Vicious would read it, if he weren’t dead.”

“YOU’RE NOT HELPING.”

But it went well, and for once I am not filled with woe by the sight of myself, thanks to Darin Back, who did such a lovely job that I am going to use him for my author’s photo, in which I will be smoking a pipe with a falcon perched upon one arm. (The other arm will be typing.)

I wish I could show you more of the photographs from the Sunday Times shoot, but then I would probably have to buy them all, and they are pricey. There are some amazing ones taken outside, where everything is green and it looks like night, even though it’s really eleven in the morning. One of my neighbors came home while they were setting up, and upon seeing the giant lights all over the sidewalk and great lumps of equipment, she scurried over to the assistant and asked, excitedly “Who is it? Who’s here?” as if Justin Timberlake might be lurking behind a parked car, getting ready for his close up.
No one, alas, was there. It was just me. Hello, neighbor! I write on the Internet!

The article itself was wonderful. I quite like the author, India Knight—she is clever and funny in her own right, and I thought she managed to talk about women writing online without making us sound like silly narcissists or focusing upon what many blogging articles seem to focus upon—the money to be made, and questions of What Will Become of the Children—because certainly if woman are spending time writing online, this must be either the result or cause (or both!) of some deficit in their personal lives. Instead, India makes this observation:

“…this stuff — about irritating husbands or weird rashes or family-friendly holidays, about having kids with special needs or being a single parent or being bored or going to work or staying at home, about what’s on telly and what boots to buy this winter and how you don’t really feel like having sex — isn’t necessarily appropriate work chat, or what you want to tell your friends on the rare occasions you actually manage to get away from your children.
The problem is, or was, that these questions and thoughts and concerns are also the stuff life is made of. They are both trifling and huge, silly but important, dull but gripping, ephemeral but permanent — and universal.”

I think it is my favourite article ever about women writing online, and not just because I am in it. Incidentally, Flotsam comes off sounding a bit dirge-heavy (Infertility! Dead babies! Crying as I read my comments!) but let me assure new readers that I do not roam the digital halls reciting poetry about infant shrouds.
Except on Wednesdays. “BEFORE THEIR TIME WEDNESDAYS,” we call them.

Pip Pip! Cheerio!

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