You know you are getting old when...

You get all hot and bothered about comparisons between your music legends and the latest young buck to hit the scene...

I read this article the other day comparing Prince with Justin Timberlake - assessing who was better etc.

Now don't get me wrong. I know that the artist formerly known as his Purple Highness has always walked on the unecessarily weird side. The stilettoes, the persona, the can-you-please - speak-up- and-utter -more-than-two -words-please! interviews. The recent conversion to Jehovah Witnessing. So fair enough - totally weird.

And again, don't get me wrong. I like J.T. I loved "Cry Me A River", and loads of stuff on Justified. I even have time for SexyBack. And J.T was hilarious acting on SNL a few weeks back and performed some great songs. I like the man, I like the music.


But steady on. STEADY ON.

J.T. came out of Nsync. And i know that's not the worst thing that could happen to a musician, but its not the same as being a music phenom.

Producers Jam and Lewis tell the story that when they were recording Prince's album in the studio one time, Prince wanted to stay on late on his own. All the musicians left. The next day Prince played them a new song that he'd written the night before. The finished track. Prince had written, arranged and played and recorded every instrument for the song and laid down all the vocals. It was the song 1999 - complete in a night's work. (Not only a classic, but if Prince ever fell on hard times, it was the song that secured him a nice pension in royalties after becoming the song to play on Millenium eve - sorry Robbie).

Many, many more points could be made, but I think I'll stop there.
Comparing a good singer and dancer to a legend just doesn't work. Let it go.

J.T is probably better at being normal human being with a nice falsetto, but seriously, he is not in the same league as Prince. Only Prince can truly do Prince.

Thoroughly Modern Mummies - The Prologue

Circa the late 1980's. Thatcher is in power. Bros are about to get us asking when will we be famous, and wearing beer bottle tops on our shoes. Prince has got us strutting about the sign of the times, doves crying and purple rain. Eastenders is cool cos its about real life and Saturday morning is Going Live.Judy Blume's Forever is read and passed around the class during Geography class like seditious literature about to start a revolution. Talking of which Tracy is about to start talking about one,Spike wants us to do the right thing, though Salt N Pepa want us to Push It. And Kylie sings our hearts out telling us we should all be so lucky.

We are not Generation X just yet, without a meta narrative and all that stuff "they" say... yada, yawn, blah, yada. Though we are just as angsty, insecure, Xers in budding form. It's just that all we care about is Have You Started Yet, and boys and cheap alcohol and ciggies. And friends. And what we look like, and what people think of us, and whether we are popular and fit in. We are comparing ourselves with the winner and the losers in life in our class and competing to stay in the race and go further up in the rankings. And perhaps that is all that comes to mind when in school assembly we are told we can have it all. Winning, and not being such a loser. And for a sacred few, maybe even becoming Prime Minister.

By some strange miracle we make it through.
Many of us get to uni, then get jobs that mean you can afford clothes, rather than Saturday jobs that give you clothing discounts. By this point Eastenders is cool because when you were young you thought it was real life. Saturday morning TV is still essential. As is Jerry Maguire and Bridget Jones. And Friends, because - its just like real life?
We're in a global village now, so we start to explore it,Dublin, Crete,OZ, NZ, Phuket - its ours to enjoy, consume...
We've learned, sometimes through tears that even if we should be so lucky in love,its not always forever.
We have a man for a prime minister with a wife who is a top lawyer type with kids, many kids.
Even if no one is telling us we can have it all, we have somehow come to expect it. The man, the job, the life, the body, the house, the friends. They are like our birthright, part of the package. We've seen other people do it. We've seen Superman, why not Superwoman? Something about being 20something feels invincible, like you're arriving at your destination.. winners, not losers ...don't you just love it?
One by one we begin to get all we hoped for. Or do we? Well no, not exactly. But she - someone else - a friend - an enemy - a fine line - did.
A pang of self doubt. We might have succeeded in the workplace, but are we doing well in life?
Better than her? Worse than she? Does it matter...its like being back in the classroom, comparing and competing, but this time its not Grades, and hopefully we moved on from boys to men. Its about bigger stuff now.

Little did we know it was just the beginning.

Baby Books

I've loved books for as long as I can remember, and since graduating from the Paddington Bear series when I was 7 (which, incidentally, totally rocked) have sought to learn everything about life from what I read. I'm not saying it was the best way, just a way...

Anyway in this season of life, my book addiction has taken the shape of baby books. Books about babies. How to have a Contented Baby , or The Happiest Baby on the Block with healthy sleep habits.
I took the advice from my Girlfriend's Guide, listened to my favourite Supernanny, and learned how to be a Baby Whisperer - a personal favourite.
Well clearly, its possible to have too much of a good thing. Just like those days when I looked at the South Lambeth Library bookshelf at the row of Paddington Bear, overwhelmed by the thought of which adventure I should go on next with my trusty bear and his marmalade, so I looked at these baby books, often with contradictory advice and got confused.
Just like Paddington, I knew not to take it all so seriously, but nonetheless, I just could not, (cannot?) walk away.

Am I reading too many books at once? Of course I am. I am not stupid, I am addicted.
Or I just have a problem with commitment.

And then I had Zoe. Gorgeous beautiful wonderful Zoe.

Thing is with these books, they kind of go into fuzzy land on how the routines, schedules, sleeping habits, womb eviction due to the evolutionary process of having bigger heads than our less evolved forebears (don't ask - but that was in one of the books, I lie to you not) - how these things apply and work when you have more than one child, less time, energy, and a toddler who hasn't read the books yet and so doesn't quite comply.

So maybe there should be a book called Whatever Gets You Through The Day, with a follow up called Whatever Gets You Through The Night.
Or maybe one just called whatever.

Happyness is a thing called...

One of the most powerful films I think I've seen - The Pursuit of Happyness.
It retells a year in the story of Chris Gardner , now a multi- millionaire entreprenuer and philanthropist, then - a father raising his son in nightmare circumstances and against the odds. Its a magnificent portrait of fatherhood, of dignity in the midst of adversity and struggle.

And who'd have thought that the Fresh Prince of Bell Air, Will Smith would rise to the challenge of the title role? Will somebody give the man an Oscar (possibly not since all the money is on Forrest Whittaker's portrayal of the lovely - not - Idi Amin).

My favourite scene is the final frame, as Will and his son (played by Smith's own son) walk down the street playing together. A tall African American man walks past, head raised high, resplendent, almost regal. Confident and dignified. The two men acknowledge one another, and Smith watches the man walk on. The past and the present day Chris Gardner captured in a single moment in time.

And I'm Telling You...

In another life, I'd have been on Broadway singing my guts out in musicals...

Last night Chris and I watched Dreamgirls. It's the film version of the musical which parallels/is loosely based on/is strangely similar to the rise of the Supremes.
Jamie Foxx was back in fine voice, but Eddie Murphy's character (a James Brownesque type) and vocals were fantastic. Beyonce did a fine job as Deena Jones (the Diana Ross character). But Jennifer Hudson - an American Idol finalist was unstoppable as Effie White.

Alongside the fab costumes and amazing vocals, Dreamgirls touches on the cost for black artists trying to make it in the mainstream in the 60's and 70's.So that they could be heard, (instead of their songs being covered by white musicians) artists needed to look a certain way, slimmer, paler, with straighter hair. Sound certain way - calmer, more accessible. They needed to write a certain kind of song - non political. Yet somewhere along the line, the cost of breaking through, of crossing into the promised land as it were, cost some of them something of their soul...
Curtis starts out with noble ambitions that eventually consumes him and his integrity. The "Thunder" is used as a stepping stone, and never gets to sing the songs that truly reflect him, and eventually presses his own self destruct button. Deena finds fame and stardom, but loses her self. And after many setbacks and trials Effie finally manages to "make it" on the terms that she always believed she should - with her Afro, dark skin, shapely figure and the full bodied voice of a DIVA.

It's just a film, with a multi- talented ensemble cast, but it certainly got me thinking of the cost of success, of pioneering something new, of crossing over into the promised land...It's not black and white...it's tough, ruthless sometimes, definitely sacrificial, not for the faint-hearted.
Amazing soundtrack, though.

A Good Mother

Sally bought me this little thing which is hanging in my kitchen saying:

"Good mothers have sticky floors, filthy ovens and Happy Kids!"

If the above adage is true - then my girls are deliriously, gloriously, marvellously happy!
And I, frankly, am phenomenal. And investing in building my girls' immune system in creative ways...

I am convinced that the legendary 'ten second rule' (where its OK to eat food that has fallen on the floor for up to ten seconds after said food has fallen on said floor) was not created by a nose-picking, grubby eight year old boy. It was made up by the nose-picking, grubby eight year old boy's mother.

Inconvenient

Convenience is something that it seems like the US has down to a fine art. Appliances and gadgets that make life so much easier. Drive thru ATM's for cash (not that you ever need cash when you have convenient things like cards in your wallet. Drive thru fast food outlets, even drive thru Starbucks when you'd love to sit down for a coffee, but you just didn't have the time.

Chris and I watched Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth the other day.
It's the first film I've fallen asleep in, largely because sleep is generally in short supply these days and because the film is essentially a lecture. But we were so drawn in by the content we watched it again, wide awake.

I was never majorly into environmental issues, beyond the basic stuff of recycling,picking up litter, not using too much water, and being kind to trees. Probably because I thought if I was going to invest my emotional energy in something I would do something that was more people focused than plant life focussed. How naive was I?

As I listened in and Al Gore spelled out the effects of the environment on the world around us, especially the two - thirds world... I got a bit of a wake up call to say the least. It was no longer an issue I could be a passive observer on, not if I cared.
And especially not here where consumption happens on a rather ridiculous scale.

At the end of the DVD there's this kind of environmental altar call - totally a preaching for a response moment. Like, OK so you've watched this - how will you respond? Do you want to change your life?
We didn't get on our knees or anything, but we did find ourselves saying "Yes" out loud.

It is inconvenient to look beyond my comfort zone.
Incovenient to research environmental issues, to lobby for change. To use cloth diapers, to change the way we live as a family.
Its inconvenient to change. Inconvenient to care. Inconvenient to act.

But flip me, I've got to ask myself some serious questions if as a Christian I am not prepared to change my life when it has such a devastating effect on other parts of the world simply because it is inconvenient. True?

An Epiphany

I have discovered that there are certain characteristics which are innate in humanity. Things which are part of the fabric of human nature. Instinctive, intuitive...

Like the game TAG. That's right, the game tag.

In the middle of the night. Zoe cries out for food. She is fed, and burped. And eventually goes to sleep.
Immdeiately Tia wakes up, and cries out for something. Food, company, who knows. I go into her room.
"Hi!" she says, smiling. I am not amused and settle her to sleep, ignoring her use of the word no. I know she cannot resist her yellow blankie and when the pressure is on, I will not hesitate to use it.
I go back to bed and try to sleep deeply and quickly, because who knows when -
"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
Zoe is wet. Like so wet that she is soaked through. I cannot expect her to go back to sleep, even though dare I say it, I'd love it if she did. So, stumbling through the dark I change her, get some fresh clothes and blankets and somehow get her sleeping again...
I tiptoe out of her room when I hear...
"Muuuuummmyyy!"
Tia says mummy occasionally to address me personally, but more often its the word she uses when she is just plain miserable. She is wet, soaking wet. And there is no way she is going to sleep now. So I change her, put her back in the crib. Give her the yellow blankie. It's wet, but she wants it, and I want her to sleep, because I want to sleep. I put an extra blanket on to cover her and my sleepy guilt.

I stagger to our bedroom, and collapse onto our bed. My night shift is over. I reach over to my husband in his sleepy bliss, firmly tap his shoulder and utter the sacred phrase that I have come to love in recent weeks.

"Tag."

New Year, new life

New year, new life.

It's funny how things change. New Years used to revolve around resolutions and plans for the direction my year would take. I'd aim to travel to a new country, get involved in a new project, write something, try something, resolve something.
I'd do a review of the highs and lows of my past year - and pray about the hopes for the future.
I'd look back on the songs, films and books of the past year and come up with a top ten...

New year, new life. Funny how things change.

Resolutions: I resolve that on days when I manage to organize the girls, that I will shower, brush my teeth, wear something other than sweats and wear make up.

I aim to brush my hair too, but I am making no promises.

My high - four hours sleep in one stretch.
My lows - four hours sleep broken up into ten minute segments by the sound "waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!"

And as for my top ten? Well lets look at music. In 2005 ( the year Tia was born) I bought one CD - John Legend. In 2006 (Zoe's year) I bought one CD - John Legend. So I guess that pretty much makes him my first, my last, my everything...
And yes I still do CD's. Funnily enough - I haven't got around to working out the iPod thing yet.

Like I said, new year, new life.