Call Me Mummy

I remember being devestated when I found out I was pregnant with my first child. I was on my Gap Year so The Big Reckless Free Love Life Plan such as it was had to be scrapped as SP (X-Husband 1) and I scrambled to reinvent ourselves as parents in waiting. But actually, retrospectively at least I rather loved the whole experinece. Travelling with children beats travelling with other grown ups. Locals take you to the bosom of the tribe. You're an instant insider. The Mummy/Child bond is a skill exchange - I taught them to read, play poker and hold cutlery, they've taught me how to use electronic equipment, shop online and pretend to speak foreign languages. Most of parenting involves sleepless nights, worry, hand-wringing helplessness, powerlessness and doubt interspersed with grand moments of paralying pride and wonderment. My youngest son's graduation from Oxford was one such day of paralysing pride and wonderment. Standing side by side with his father (fine figure of moral fibred man)surrounded by my other children (stunning examples of the best of combined gene pools) - my life as Mummy rocks.

return from LA

Ah to be writing in my own bed again. Is there anything more nifty(word of the day)? I feel all ruminat-ish somehow under my own lovely duvet surrounded by my favourite books. This evening (2.05am - still jet lagged) I am ruminating about the glorious lunch I had at the Polo lounge with Cami Taylor from Crossroads Films and how out of the ether my beloved Nicole Clemens appeared and in my feverish excitement I spilt my water all over our table. It was all beautifully baptisimal and sacred. I do so love the sacred. From now on I shall baptise all my favourtite tables. It set a mood of unforgetable momements in LA: the Getty Museum & Villa, finally meeting my idol Marguerite. Michele who's writing the script for Pulling Princes, complicated cocktails with Alicia, Giles & Dash at Trader Vics. Shopping on Rodeo Drive for a mystifying array of products that now make absolutely no sense. LA is all rather mystifying actually and I drowned in it - in a lovely, attractive way I hope.
And then of course there was poker night at Nicole's house. But best of all I know that Cordelia will be home on Friday and I shall be complete.

poker for life

When we were teens the nuns taught us to play poker. We adored it as much as they did. Whether we won or whether we lost wasn't the deal because all the pot went to charity. What mattered was the surprising things we learned about ourselves and one another. I became a fanatic. The nuns told us that the way you play your cards reveals the person you really are to yourself and to others. You expose yourself through "tells". But another thing about poker is that you come face to face with what you really want and what you've really got. Poker's about measuring outcomes and managing luck.
The stakes we played for weren't fantastically high, but the conversation - usually about what makes boys tick (the nuns had a great deal to say about boys and their "zone of need" but that's for anther blog). We soon saw that poker strategy could easily help us in that jous de jous; love. Cosmo had nothing on Texas Hold'Em. So we started off a set of poker rules for measuring outcomes with boys:
1)No more pathetic hoping we could change a boy (the cards). We'd fold on losers and wait for better cards (boys). 2) No more pining away helplessly for lack of a boy who refused to acknowledge we even existed. The modern equivalent would be to know when to txt a boy, and know when to press REFUSE as his name cames up on the mobile screen.
So anyway, this was our summer of strategy: the summer of reading naked bluffs, making muscle bluffs and analysing predictive tells of the heart. We would know when to go “all in” and know when to fold.
Sometimes I got it wrong and sometimes I got it right. Overall I still think my poker strategy to love helped me fare better in affaires de coeur than the girls who simply followed their heart. My biggest strength was being really honest about what it was my heart really wanted and what my chances of getting it were. My biggest prob was I could never bring myself to fold before the flop. Which is probably why I landed myself in so much emotional debt. But then when you're young there's always another game, another boy, life is full of possible outcomes. While other girls would spot a madly fit boy and say, "he's mine!" - or "ooh-la-la" for us our battle cry was "shuffle up and deal!"
My belief in poker strategy as a guide to living has held strong. Good poker players have to study more than their cards - they have to be honest about how they feel about their cards. Knowing why you play the way you play, is both revealing and empowering. And then there's the play of others. Unless we're in a showdown we rarely get to understand why people played their cards the way they did and life's like that.

Playing your cards close to your chest remains a good adage for life. Let them think you're a fool, the nuns would say. Better a boy underestimates you and he comes undone than you underestimate life's possibilities and you come undone.

I do miss The Wisdom of Nuns - and they were sooo right about boys and their zone of need! Enter it at your peril!

My PA has a life

I have had to let my PA go. So I'm back at the wheel of my own life - at least my personal life. So for the first time in a long while I've anwering my own emails and phone calls. It's come as a rude awakening as now I have to muck in and deal with my own life, which I was getting rather used to avaoiding. In fact I have become so reliant on my PA "doing" my life I've had to ask him for advice on where I'm at with my relationships: what I've said to this person and that person etc. In effect, my PA has been acting as me which in real terms means he's been more me than me. This was why I decided to employ a PA in the first place to free me up to write. But while I've been interacting with my fictional characters I've lost touch with my so called real life. The question is do I actually want my life back?

MY LADY'S GENTLEMAN TRIUMPHS OVER A SCORPION

My Lady's-Gentleman (PA but let's not tell him) came bearing my morning jug of espresso and two glasses of full-fat milk. He was full of beans. 'I've had an exciting night,' he boasted. 'Yes, I captured a scorpion. It was flat so I thought it might be dead but...'
I sorted through my correspondence only half listening to his chattering though to be fair I added the odd: 'fantastic' and 'gosh you are so brave'. Lady's Gentlemen need to feel appreciated.
Two friends are having their birthdays today, an offer on a flat I want to buy for my daughter has been rejected, several fans are clamouring for a Book 5 in the Calypso Chronicles and several more want to audition for the film. All I see though is that my agent has "no news" on my latest book. No News!
I took a sip of coffee as my Lady's Gentleman finished his tale oblivious to my silent breakdown. 'Eventually I caught it and it's down stairs in a glass.' He seemed pleased with himself so I said. 'Well done.'
‘I thought you might want to see it,' he suggested.
'See what?'
'The scorpion.'
I just looked at him blankly. 'See it? Why? I’ve lived in Africa and Asia. I've seen hundreds of scorpions.
'It's in a glass,' he pointed out still full of pride.
'You're not Christopher Robin, darling. Just chuck it outside,' I told him and went on with my breakdown.
A few hours later I wandered downstairs where in my perfect living room of divine serenety and gorgeousness I spotted a dirty glass with a Guardian CD of Great Speeches of the 20thC on top. 'What's this?' I asked, lifting the cd up and heading towards the kitchen with the glass. That was when the huge scorpion charge up my arm. I flicked it to the floor and it raced towards me. I screamed, 'Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!' Like a mad despot.
'Stop screaming!' He yelled.
'I'll stop screaming when you slap it dead with a slipper!' I screamed back.
'I can't concentrate with you screaming!' he bellowed, and on, and on and on it went until he finally resigned himself that I would only stop screaming until when the creature was dead.
Finally I heard a thwack.
'It's dead,' he confirmed.
I stopped screaming and listened to my Lady's Gentleman hammering the slipper (a very nice pale pink satin marabou concoction from Agent P,) against the floor boards.
Now he's cooking my lunch.
We have our moments but overall I think I hired the right Lady's Gentleman for the job!

HEATHROW HAMPERS MY PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

I eventually flew out of Heathrow last night after a horrendous argument with the customs men over my Louis Vuitton carry on. They stopped me and asked me my carry on would fit into their stupid metal size-nazi box. 'Of course,' I told them insouciently and requested my PA to demonstrate.
The case more-or-less slipped into their box - well perhaps a litle less than more. 'No, it won't fit. You'll have to put it on cargo,' they insisted pointing to the handle which refused to squeeze in.
'Of course it will fit!' I told them sweetly. Positive attitude beaming from every pore of my being. Also I was wearing a madly intoxicating scent that evening and I hoped they were under my spell.
We've never seen one of those fit in,' a nearby subordinate agreed - resolutely unspellbound by my scent.
I rose to my full 5'5" (5'10" in heels actually) and glared. As a poker player I know when to fold and when to run. THis was not a time for folding. 'I have travelled with this case for seven years. We have been through thick and thin together darling. Delays, cancellations, we've been there for one another. I feel an unnatural closeness to my LVT and would NEVER put it in cargo. I'm sure your mother would agree. We, those of us who care about fine luggage can't let this happen.' I could see invoking his mother was making him waiver.
'Just make it go in!' I hissed at my Ladies Gentleman who took to the task with great alacrity (he loves these boy-scout moments of his job) forcing the case into the size-nazi box with his leg. Success!
Unfortunately once we'd forced it in, neither my Lady's Gentleman nor the chaps at customs could get it out and we had to lay the large contraption, all six feet of it, down on the floor. Dressed in my new mink, I was shoving one end, my PA and customs men were at the other, pulling for Queen and Country. Meanwhile who knows what fiends-of-ill-intent marched through to the other side.
'I was told at the store on Rodeo Drive that it was industry standard,' I insisted gamely as all three customs men rolled around the floor with my PA tugging at my case. By this stage The PA was in charge. I squirted the air with my scent Santa Maria Novella, which is made by the loveliest little nuns in Florence you ever saw. Anyway it is feverishly calming. And the poor chaps rolling on the floor needed a good dose of calm.
'I promise you it usually just slips in,' I assured them - though actually I've never been questioned before.
All of them were now red faced and madly sorry they'd ever questioned me. Passengers were stepping over them, the atmospheare was thick with desperation and rose scent. My job was to keep spirits high. Finally, after twenty minutes, four destroyed men, one who actually wept and was sent off by his senior and one slightly damaged LVT bag, my PA and I triumphantly swept into the VIP lounge where he prepared me the best Bloody Mary I have ever had. However this morning as I looked at my scratched handle, I felt really cross as I just bought the final piece in the LVT set and we look completely perfect at airports. When I told them at LVT on Bond Street all the staff were in tears. 'You poor little love,' they said. I was taken into a back room and shown new stock they had coming in. I had to buy a few new pieces just to cheer them up really.

Signing The Deal

Is there anything more splendid that the sight of a FedEx Van man knocking on one's door with a Hollywood Contract to sign. Well if there is, I don't know what it is. All the lonely days and nights writing in bed about girls and boys at boarding school, and then someone in Los Angeles "loves it"! It is too, too, bon for words.
My Lady's Gentleman read each word carefully (he's a very slow but thorough reader) before presenting the pages to me for signature.
He loves saying, "sign here" which I'm sure isn't healthy.
As I added my scrawl to the 4 copies I regreted not using a smarter pen. Off to Bond Street toute de suite! I must stop going to Cartier every time I feel depressed or happy. I blame the staff at Cartier - no one in London admires my jewels quite as much as them. They are tres, tres complimentary and make one feel that one has exquisite taste. Which one does apart from on Sundays when I go a bit skew wiffy taste wise.
'Cartier is becoming a nasty habit I must break,' I told my PA hoping he'd say something supportive like, 'Nonsense, you deserve it.'
But he didn't. He wrote down in his 'Things Tyne Must Stop Doing' pad. I bought it so he could write nice useful things in it like Tyne must stop marrying unsuitable men but he never did (he being one of the most unsuitable men that ever walked god's good earth. I wish I'd never had Smythsons inscribe the wretched thing.
As I swept through the doors of Cartier feeling all va-va-va-voomish, he passed me a note which, read. 'Tyne must stop going to Cartier - she can't afford it.She's a hard working author not a kept woman!' Which I would be by the way if I didn't spend all my money keeping him.
I must find a new Ladies Gentleman. In the meantime I am back writing in bed, this time its a book about the mayhem of relationships in our brave new on line world of Google, Facebook, Wikipedia and You Tube.