New Year Resolutions- the Id manifesto

New Years Resolutions are a little like the Santa wish lists only more self flagellatory (Freudian scholars and also scholars of Freud could think of them as a manifesto for the Id). In keeping with the theme of denial, most new years resolutions tend to be negative rather than positive (the majority tend to be of the ilk: stop X, cut down on Y, reduce Z), with the words weight, cigarettes/smoking, spending, alcohol all fairly interchangeable. Positive affirmations could be the way to go, by this I don't mean: take up smoking, increase alcohol intake. Thus making New Years Resolutions seems as easy as XYZ, it's non-conformity that's the issue. But then other XX bearing XX lovers know that already.

I came across some recent research in a reputable newspaper which recommended that the best way in which to keep to New Years resolutions is to make them at times other than New Year. I wish to nitpick their terminology here: may I suggest that these slices of wishful thinking are not then still deserving of the title "New Year" resolution if done at other times. Of course, for the sake of argument, one could be referring to dating systems other than the Gregorian calendar but then a "New Year Resolution" which could feature should this be the case may well be "try and be less pedantic".

I prefer to think of such resolutions as promises to self. Plenty of articles focus on the types of resolutions and one's likelihood to stick with them, rather than, say, their feasibility. I have observed over time that resolution-levels are themselves intrinsically proportional to my self esteem at the time of making. Allow me to demonstrate. If they circulate around things such as:
- Find cure for cancer
- Successfully lobby governments to eradicate Third World Debt
- Advance equality of the sexes
Then paradoxically, my self esteem is running low, these are aiming quite high and any success on a personal level highly doubtful. While I do tend to "build castles in the sky" and see idealism as a positive character trait (a Libran affliction I feel), I successfully resist the temptation to move into said cloud castles (Care Bear style) and accordingly am not delusional.

Another illuminating list would be the underachiever one whereby one's expectations of self are sufficiently low to prefix each resolution with "try to" or "if possible", thereby neatly negating the definition of resolution and exchanging resolve for "would quite like to... I think". This is otherwise known as the "get out clause" variety.

My New Year resolution is to be more decisive and proactive. This is ironically indicative of me being so indecisive about my New Year Resolutions that I was unable to come up with anything more concrete. I have a plan B sublist of course should plan A fail, with even more realistic goals along the lines of "think about Angelina Jolie more often," although in the same vein my sublist features "write fewer and shorter lists" and "set more manageable goals". I rest my case.

Smokey Dykes and Freudian Sleeps

Slow start today, Libran verbosity- chatting with lover about my concept of a "5-year plan", and the subtle differences of a "3-year plan" which she bore well (or was it I doing the boring?) Any conversation that has sentences which begin with, "Now, by 40 years of age..." and kicked off with a little recap of our life plans in our early 20s (we'll have been together 6 years next March)... is going to be long-winded.

I was working up to a brilliant point about how everything segued together to a pinnacle that was in itself the very exemplification of us both achieving self-actualisation and inner harmony (I’m a Libran). This all depended on a very particular and subtle perspective/ stance (pronounced “perspective stroke stance”, or maybe in some cultures it’s more slashing than stroking). Anyhow, I digress, there was an overarching reason for it all... and there, to quote the big E (Mme DeGeneres), I congratulated myself too soon, thinking my lover's going to be so impressed, she'll think how clever she is...and…. it all disappeared in a poof of smoke (or to coin a phrase, and why not, a dyke of smoke?) I continued rambling a little while to try to re-mount as it were (always important to get right back on if one inadvertently falls off somehow, I feel). Anyhow, the whole thing trailed into a negligible, forgettable point.

The upshot (or lack thereof) being, I don't know whether I should be relieved that lover didn't seem to notice the fizzle at the end, or rather concerned that such are her expectations of yours truly, that non-earth shattering anti-climaxes, albeit verbal, do not disappoint. Accordingly, I am currently in the in-between state in the nether regions of being peeved and relieved, which I shall dub peelieved to describe the phenomenon:

Peelieved:
The state of being upset that nobody has noticed how stupid one has been, inextricably coupled with bullying from the subconscious, which chalks it all down to expectations.

Speaking of Freud, which I wasn’t, but I was thinking of him, which is in fact the same thing: I am recently beset by a whole new type of Freudian slip. I shall christen this eponymously after an ironic error by yours truly, when I inadvertently said something very sexual in conversation and then to amend, “Freudian sleep”.

Freudian sleep (typing variety) aka Freudian slop:
The affliction whereby typos are inappropriately appropriate (or vice versa), and the simple slip of an over-eager butter-finger can produce entirely different results than intended. This is often undetected by spellcheckers and, unless colloquial, these neo-words slip under the radar and into general circulation.

My best examples are, by their very nature, non-reproducable here. Although I can, however, reveal a lesser offender where I routinely type the ubiquitous “it” as a three letter palindromic word and a small bird, contextually this can be incriminating.

This all culminates (or not as the point may be), in a recent job application for a lesbian company in which I professed to be “au fait with women’s cliterature”, I heard back from them too, so intrigued were they no doubt with my fearless feminist wordsmithery and while they were interested to receive my open application and definitely wanted to keep it on file (such was its comedic value no doubt), there were, for me at that time, “no openings”.
Oh well, I guess tit happens to the breast of us.

Lesbian Mecca- its all about the balls

My other-half and I spent much of yesterday trawling around Ikea. It was time to return to the lesbian Mecca.
My lover has now recovered from the mirth that ensued when, early on in our relationship, on one of my first visits to Norway, after spying the store: I exclaimed "Hey, you've got Ikea in Scandinavia too!". Several years better acquainted, a momentary aberration has now been chalked up to my ability for large parts of life to pass me by; I have officially become an oxymoron (I tenaciously keep the oxy prefix) and been dubbed "the most stoopid clever person" she knows.

Anyhow, I digress, Ikea. (I've been fishing for a clever acronym but these things can't be forced.) Ikea trips are fascinating in a relationship dynamic sense- in terms of the shared goals being literally made concrete: if you find you are getting in each other's way in the mock-up 35 km square flat, then the sea-scape is becoming Turner-esque. If you're all Billy and she's all Gertha, it won't work. If you cannot walk past any partly-shielded beds without suggestive raised eyebrows and check out your partners arse when they are checking out the lower shelves, then all is healthy (clean bill of health here, sayeth I). Ikea in Norway has playfully docked its minimalistic cap to the potency of Ikea and its bed ads are quite raunchy here. I believe ending up with the couple in a store in fact (maybe their ad prewired my instore voyeuristic flirting).

A conceptual mutation accelerated ideological evolution and someware (deliberate misspelling, believe its called onomatopeia- which is ironically very hard to spell) house-became home, home became lifestyle- which is broad enough to include alternative lifestyles. In fact, the staff are so used to lesbian couples, that as you skip into view- joined at the hand- their expressions assume that seen-it-all-sheen. Norwegians are expert at this. Nonchalance (ie. non-plussedness) is practised nowhere better then here in Norway, and ironically phenomenally lacking in La France (where at Sarkozy's right hand stands hyperbole, actually is it possible there could be anything to the right in the spatial spectrum of Monsieur Sarkozy?)

Anyhow, being awash in cool classic design aroused my Libran aesthetic sensitivity, while the homeliness had my beautiful Cancer-crab-partner salivating with desire, cooing "just imagine..." and then leaving me to fill in the blanks, each time we entered a pseudo-kitchen/living room. Such was the seductive nature of the store that we followed the arrows as commanded and even enjoyed a romantic meal in their canteen/restaurant. Scandinavian meatballs, to be precise, and to be authentic, next time order "Kjøtboller være så snill"/meatballs be so kind/ kyutboller var sho snill, only don't say all three they'll think you're crazy. It was there that I caved, and the lifestyle became too irresistible: around the same time that whatever they put in the meatballs worked its magic on me. If there is a lesbian equivalent of catnip- its in the Ikea meatballs. Food-for-thought, literally.

Post-balls, I found myself fantasizing about us having little baby lesbians, and wondering where the trolley-loads of babies were from and which cryptic aisle code I needed to write down and then lose en route to the warehouse (my usual procedure) to buy me some Ikea sperm. Even our shopping list/wish list became faintly like a life-goals visualisation exercise embodied in furniture and soft-furnishings. "Become tantric sex master/mistress" leads one to the candle section (making babies should be fun after all, can't allow procreation to replace hedonism). Becoming a self-dubbed chef rather than a cook would be a natural progression in a well spaced kitchen. While the home offices impart a work ethic with Protestant zeal (in the sociological sense). Achieving my ideal balanced (Libran) life was simply a matter of interior design. My partner's unfulfilled Cancerian yearnings for domestic bliss were no longer out of reach due to a clashing nomadic tendencies, she had an epiphany, and it was suddenly all a question of interior design and hitherto due to a lack of that Ikea magic. (We both had balls.)

Regarding the balls with lesbian catnip (note the feline affinity for us Sapphists), I feel I should qualify this statement. I am not given to tossing around such wild accusations, I shall endeavour to domesticate them somewhat or at least atone for my rashness.
Proof 1. Post-meatball acquisitions went through the store roof, we couldn't keep ourselves from picking up and fondling whatever we passed (although the cute female Unicef rep was exempt, just).
Proof 2. A strange sense of euphoria accompanied the smallest design features, bandying around words like genius (for peg-design and the trivialities of life: now morphed into beautiful, often overlooked details.
Proof 3. I am now sat in a bamboo forest (it can't be right-wing monetarist consumerism if its Feng-shui, can it?) where all the furnishings have their own names. What with that and my just-the-right-side-of-delusional dependency on "age-defying" cocoa butter, and an impulse-buy of a cuddly panda bear, and this little pad of ours smells and looks like a sort of Amazonian wilderness, a minimalist one of course.

For those enslaved to the Ikea philosophy, preachers in the guise of after-sales support service are always just a phonecall/ e-mail away. A year ago, I couldn't assemble our new flat-pack love nest, I rang up and said, I've just bought the bla-bla bed (I think that was the name) and "the voice of heard-it-all before" interjected with "the slats are laid out convex-wise", then sensing an extra-silent pause that could only be due to intellect deficiency on my part, as I raced to remember physics lessons of yore, gave me the stupid person suffix in words free from multiple syllables or abstract concepts: "like a bridge", then sensing she should clarify further, "not like a boat, like a bridge". By the time my partner entered the room I was putting the finishing touches to my FIY job (F***-It-up Yourself), and murmuring in knowledgeable tones, "Oh-yes, it was convex", even daring to offer up a "thought so". Hoping the murky grey-lie would somehow obscure my earlier lack of problem solving ability beyond my repeated exclamations of, "Pictograms, why pictogram instructions?", topped off with the ego-balming and faintly arrogant sign of things to come: "I speak five bl**dy languages and not one of them is hieroglyphics".

What concerns me is the bed episode is a scene faintly reminiscent of one with an ex (could we be shaped by our exes?) Said ex once buffeted me away from a flat-pack bookshelf I was happily tinkering with and inexplicably shrieked at me, "My father's a carpenter!" whilst pouncing on the screwdriver and dominating the project. No further explanation or apology to atone for such odd behaviour was ever offered up. Indeed, my current partner (and soulmate, just to negate the temporary nature of "current") had an ex who did exactly the same thing (we checked rapidly, not the same one): they had a Jesus complex maybe.

I've wandered off the arrows again, although the theme of delusions of grandeur and born-again experiences remains the same (walk the "non-straight" line through my hot-waffle and you too shall reach enlightenment in a few steps). If I sound a little dazed, I blame it on the balls, I'm just not used to them. Thankfully, the evangelical power of the Ikea rhetoric and food-drugging is waning now, and a towel peg looks like, well, a towel peg. As Freud said, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar", sometimes balls are just balls.