Didn’t she almost have it all?

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When one has potential it always seems such a shame when the potential doesn’t materialise. Worse still, when it’s your own fault.

I’ve seen her before at, what I would say, was the peak of her career but actually near the beginning. For me the first two albums were the best and it was steadily downhill from there.

When I saw her I hated the fact that she acted like a diva. It seemed that 10 minutes of song were followed by 20 minutes of nothing – whilst she went off to get changed into yet another frock, whilst we were entertained (or, rather bored to tears) by some dancers or some music. She annoyed the hell out of me because we had tickets to see her and I wanted to hear her sing not see what pretty dresses she had in her wardrobe.

But, there was no doubt, the voice was tremendous, the songs superb (I just wanted there to be more of them).

But it was with some trepidation that I went last night to the Milan Forum at Assago to see her on her ‘come back’ tour.

I’d read some reviews (particularly those of Birmingham in the UK and some in Australia) and watched some clips on YouTube from the recent tour. Ah well, I thought, perhaps now that she’s been doing the tour for a while and got rid of the ‘bugs’, it will be a lot better.

But I wasn’t really too hopeful.

The first couple of songs were from the new album. I don’t know them. OK, so her voice didn’t seem perfect but it was OK, as far as I could tell. Then a couple more.

The voice cracked in places. The same sort of ‘crack’ that happens when a boy’s voice is changing. Then she seemed to beg. Begging to be liked is never a good thing and this is what it seemed like. During the whole thing references were made to the fact that she was only human, that she hoped that her voice would be OK. She said something about there being a cold draught from one side of the stage and that, as any Diva would tell you (which made me almost laugh out loud – her? A Diva??), was a difficult thing – comparing herself to Aretha Frankly and Dione Warwick! WTF?

Then she went off. We were ‘treated’ to her brother making some dreadful attempt to sing one of her songs. I hardly recognised it. There was some boring dancing. We waited.

She reappeared in some sparkling, golden, diva-style dress with a fur coat over the top (to stop the draught, I suppose). She looked old and fat – but fat because she was bloated not fat that comes to us all with age. She looked tired. She sweated a lot (and I mean A LOT).

And then she sang some songs. It was as if the almost acceptable woman had gone backstage and changed outfit but also changed into a different person. It was absolutely dreadful.

It sounded more like a really poor Ertha Kitt – at least Ertha could hold a tune!

OK so, the most well known song wasn’t as bad as the ones I had seen on YouTube but, still, the range has gone and the voice did crack in one place.

It was like watching a train wreck happening in slow motion. At one point, as she went to sit on a high chair, it seemed as if she was going to topple over backwards! She seemed older and, to be honest, it seemed as if she had had several lines of coke whilst she had been backstage.

There were occasional flashes of what she was. Some parts of some songs, filled with the emotional power she became famous for; held in tune.

But this was sad. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see her collapse on stage and to be told later that she had died. It was like everyone was there to see her very last performance.

The crowd went wild at many parts. But this was not because she was good. This was because of what she had been and the fact that they were fans. I am not a real fan. I could hear how dreadful it was. Quite a number of people started leaving before the end – maybe they had other reasons to leave.

I shook my head as I watched her; I squirmed inside for the sight of a once-great singer singing out-of tune; I felt sorry for her and for what she should have been but, now, would never be, even if she did ‘clean herself up’.

Towards the end was this one below – but by then it was apparent that she couldn’t sing any more. I prefer to remember her as she was. This song was the one that used to get me excited about going out – going out to a club and dancing – curbing my natural shyness.

Whitney Houston could have been great by now. Not, perhaps, in the same way as Barbara Streisand but great, nonetheless. Instead, it would have been better for her not to have performed. If I had paid the €180 it cost to sit in the first few rows, I would have been more than disappointed.

But it was sad to see and hear. And, in spite of the cheering and ovation, I wonder how many of these people would go back to see her again?

Such a shame. This song of hers seems to sum it up.

Update: Of course, within a couple of years she was dead and so, I saw her twice. I prefer to remember the first time.

Italian begging is different.

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There are a lot of beggars here, in Milan.

There are those whose ‘job’ it is, sitting on the pavements, hand outstretched, wanting money. Italians, down on their luck; people with deformities or missing or mis-shapen limbs – showing off those limbs like some circus freak show; ordinary people who want to cadge a cigarette from you.

And then, yesterday afternoon there was the guy asking me for a couple of euro for ice-cream!

I mean to say, I understand all the other people – but begging for ice-cream?????

Only in Italy, I’m sure.

Going some places and not others …….. at least, not yet!

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“No, I haven’t been invited, yet”, I reply.

He pulls a face and makes that little sound that says he’s ever so lightly annoyed. I smile and touch his arm. It’s my little joke, as he knows. Yet, it’s no joke really and he knows that too. It puts some pressure on him but I never mention it unless someone asks me. I won’t do that. It’s part of the game. The one where I don’t push; where I wait for him to suggest or make the first move. The rules were set up from the beginning – from the time when I would have moved in with him in a second and he wanted to take it so slow. It’s now the habit.

We had been talking about summer holidays. Someone asked where we planned to go. I get that warm and fuzzy feeling knowing that we have discussed the possibilities and I can repeat them without fear that they won’t happen. I start saying the options that we’ve been thinking of.

“We’re going to Puglia”, he says, interrupting me. “I already booked”

“You did?”, I query.

“Yes, I’m just waiting for the confirmation.”

I turn to the other dinner party guests and say “We’re going to Puglia, apparently”.  They laugh.

He’s spontaneous – but it’s always planned spontaneity, if you understand me. I am happy for it. I am excited by it. The place will have a pool,I know. The place will take the dogs, I know. There’ll be the sitting by the pool and the long walks with the dogs. There’ll be the trips to towns or some other places. It will be as perfect as it could be for me. I am so very happy about this. Puglia is a great place to go. We will have two weeks or 10 days and I don’t care since we shall be together, all four of us.

Then someone asks him about where he comes from. And then they turn to me and ask if I’ve been, expecting a ‘yes’. Instead they get the response I wrote at the top of this post. I want to go but I can and will wait. It is only very gentle pressure that I am applying – it’s not a ‘deal breaker’ and I want it to happen when he’s ready (or when other people are ready, maybe).

I expect it will be before Puglia – just for a weekend but there are many things before Puglia.

Later, in bed, we kiss. I am so happy that, now, we can kiss properly again and tell him so. We hold each other and, again, I think that I am so very fortunate.

Jealousy………no thanks.

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It’s all changed. It’s all different, somehow but I’m not entirely sure why. There’s nothing that I can really explain but F seems much more relaxed and, when he’s relaxed, he is even more wonderful.

Last night I arranged to go out with A for a drink to celebrate my birthday. F agreed to come but there was none of the usual ‘difficulty’ in getting him to come. There’s not a real difficulty but, until yesterday, he was less inclined to go out. This time it was no problem. Maybe because he had good news about the test too and, maybe, because, as a result of that he knows he can trust me more? I don’t know.

And A is going through a bit of a tough time as he and Fr have split (again) and he feels he’s getting older. And he knows that he has, shall we say, a more difficult personality – sometimes (although not for me) he comes across as a bit arrogant. I just find it a funny personality trait and it really doesn’t worry me but I think that was why V never really liked him. Best Mate, on the other hand, when she was over said that he was really nice and, underneath it all, as I have explained before, he has a heart of gold and is a really good friend.

He bought me a card. And what he wrote in it was really nice and I was touched. He has really deep feelings (which he keeps well hidden) but they are really genuine. I think F likes him too.

We talked a lot about relationships. F said so many things that I agreed with. And it reminded me of the first night and how the things he said, with such conviction, were the things that I thought too – and how that is the reason that we’re together – because, as he said, we were both looking for the same thing – and we found it in each other. And, so, there may be many things where we differ (mainly food) but with regards to the basic things, the intangibles, we are the same. I think that makes for a good base.

He also said that I was not like S. And he knows I am not. We may both be English, both Taurus, both with blue eyes – but that’s where the similarity ends.

And so when a guy texted me (one I met before I met F), I was torn between not telling F and just going; not going but rather than tell the guy just make excuses; and telling F.

Last night we were talking about jealousy. A is always jealous. Fr stopped A from seeing his old friends (girls) because she was insanely jealous. F said that he used to be jealous. I was shocked and told him so. He always seemed the most unjealous person I’ve met! He said that he was really jealous, especially with S but then he had reason to be. With me he doesn’t feel like that because I have given him no cause for this. I don’t keep saying that I can’t come because I’m meeting so-and-so; I don’t stare (or hardly look, to be honest) at other guys when I’m with him – when I’m with him I am with him and only him.

And so I told him this guy had texted and wants to meet for coffee. I asked if it was OK for him and he said yes. And so, shortly I go to meet him. I hope it will be nice and I hope he doesn’t expect anything else. I will give no cause for F to be jealous now.

And, I may have mentioned it before or maybe not, but I have been a little jealous of F. He spends a lot of time with Si, his colleague at work. For a while I did think that, perhaps, there was something more but I was determined that I must not think that. I know that we both come into this with a past and with past boyfriends. They won’t disappear. I won’t (in spite of some hurdles) cut myself off from V. We spent 20 years together. Nor am I jealous of F talking to S or, for that matter, any old boyfriends. after all, if they had been that good and compatible, he would still be with them and not with me.

And, really, I should find a way to get in touch with M. After all, we were together for 10 years and he was my first in so many ways.

But A doesn’t really get that. And I tried to explain that I understood as with M it was different and, maybe, it’s because I am older and I cannot ignore the years leading up to this – this now – this being with F and that all those years before were to get to here and I am very happy with being here and, of course, all the years that F had before led to here and I am happy he is here with me.

And so all is right and I cannot be jealous.

Maybe it’s not what it seemed?

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It’s an up-market restaurant. I have described it before. Most of the men wore suits and normally with a tie, in spite of the weather outside being close to 30 degrees; the women wearing evening/cocktail dresses – often black since, in spite of fashion trends, ‘black’ will always be the new ‘black’.

F recognised someone who owned a shop near Jil Sander in Milan. The clientèle being of that calibre – wealthy! The tables are really too close together – and too many and the acoustics are terrible – not enough soft furnishings to quieten the noise from the diners. The place was full – you could say heaving.  And, yet …………

The food was divine. As a antipasto, I had three large pieces of octopus sunk into a bowl of purée but coloured with saffron – very hot; the octopus meaty and yet not tough, not chewy. The portion was more than generous. We knew it would be and, so, opted to skip the primo. For secondo I had manzo – entrecôte steak – cooked to perfection and as you cut it, like butter – as you eat it – the texture of properly done liver – so soft and nice. But the sweets – I had pastry tart filled with crema (like custard) and topped with wild strawberries which were so sweet; F had the same base but filled with a kind of thick chocolate cream (but really chocolatey) topped with pistachio – we had half and half of course and the chocolate desert was to die for.

Sure we (or rather, I, since it was my birthday) paid a hefty sum for this meal – not far from €200 – but it was worth it – the food being divine. And we talked. Not about anything in particular but, still, it was talking and laughing and having fun and it was lovely.

As we were there, ‘one’ table of about 6 people finished and the left. The waiters then split the table in two and on one there were three ‘business’ men and the other was a couple.

Well, I say ‘couple’. The man, probably in his 40s but looking older, ugly and very overweight, dressed in a dark grey suit sat opposite a guy who was, probably in his thirties. As a couple they looked very out of place. The younger guy looked so out of place in this restaurant. I mean to say, we were not in suits but rather jeans and shirts – casual but smart. But we were both the same – dressed at the same level. The younger guy in this situation was in jeans and a check shirt and wore a baseball cap (the wrong way round as is the norm for teenagers – and he was no teenager) which he continued to wear whilst he ate. He spent some time on his mobile telephone; he was laid back in his chair like he was being over-casual about everything; when he got to eating he ate in a way that indicated he had never been shown how to use a knife and fork – he just didn’t belong there!

Except, of course, probably, he was there as the ‘guest’ of the fat, ugly guy and later, once he had eaten his expensive meal, there would be something in it for the FUG.

It’s just that you don’t see it so often. Again it makes me grateful for the life I’ve lead and the partner I now have and that I have never had to resort to ‘buying’ my partner, even short-term. Even so, there was something almost paedophilic about it, even if, in reality, it wasn’t since we weren’t talking young kids or, in fact, in spite of the baseball cap, kids of any kind. Still it was, sort of, disgusting.

Of course, maybe I got the wrong idea – but then, that would be both of us and, probably, most of the restaurant.

The restaurant being Ristorante di Giacomo.

Why do they hound those MPs who tell the truth?

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Let me say, for the record, that I do not vote any more. I see no point. My one vote will not elect the people I want and, anyway, they aren’t much better than a bunch of scumbags.

After all, they never tell the truth – they tell you (like any good salesman) what you want to hear so that you will vote for them. I suspect that, given the amount of money the UK Government had to ‘create’ to save themselves and the banks from the crisis, that, in order to pay back that created money, they will need to make severe cuts in expenditure and increase taxes. But none of them actually tell you that. Not even the people that I would vote for if, for a moment, I thought they were worth the effort.

So, this story made me stop and think for a moment.

It goes like this:- Man who is (and would still be, if he gets the votes) the Prime Minister meets normal old lady who reads the Daily Star or some similar paper (I would say the Daily Mail – but we know they’re all crazy right-wing fascists). Normal old lady, brought up in a normal working class environment, who knows bugger all about the world at large, does as her parents undoubtedly did and blames those bloody foreigners for being the cause of all problems in her neck of the woods (I should say here that, apart from the piece I read, I don’t know the full details of their conversation). Current Prime Minister says all the right things to her as one would expect from a sleazy (sorry, normal) politician and everyone goes away happy.

Except, since this was a set-up anyway, he’s not happy that they set him up with some bigoted old lady like that and says so, on microphone, which he didn’t take off! He calls her bigoted. Press have a field day.

For one moment, it made me think that, perhaps, I should register for a vote and vote for him as he is probably the only politician who has actually spoken his mind and spoken the truth. Unfortunately:

a) it was an unguarded moment and he now apologises for calling a bigoted old lady ‘bigoted';

b) he apologised for it later whereas really he should have stuck by it (for it was true) and

c) he helped to bring about this crisis in the first place and then, when he could have done something radical and noble (like fixing the banks and getting rid of this illusion that we can all get richer even as the resources decline) he panders to the big banking industry and now we are back to where we were – i.e. no change.

Anyway, he’s Labour and I would never vote for them. I always think of Animal Farm when I think of Labour politicians.

But I admire the fact, for once, I heard a truth being spoken by a politician. Can’t wait until we can mind-read. It’ll save so much shit being spoken and leave most politicians without a job except perhaps as furniture salesmen.

The Good Things

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There are, as there always are, many good things happening right now, in spite of some other things that are not so good.

The weather is warmer, in general. Currently it has to be above 25 degrees and, as I am now at home, I have, for the first time this year, got out and am wearing, my sandals. OK so maybe not a big deal to you it is one of ‘those things’ that makes living here such a wonderful dream. To explain (although I may have explained before), in the UK I could wear sandals for only a few days a year – probably some days during June, July or August but hardly ever for more than the actual day, needing to put socks and shoes on in the evening. Although it is too early to be wearing sandals for the evening, it was with great joy that I went into the cupboard and dusted off my favourite sandals and put them on this afternoon. This time of year makes me so happy – knowing that, in a few more weeks just sandals, shorts and a T-shirt will be needed day and night. It makes me feel free and, although I know that is an illusion, it’s a good illusion.

And the reason I am home early is that I went for the results of the test. At first, because they spoke to me in Italian (not realising I didn’t really understand) I thought they had said that something was not good. Me, being me, had gone through the various scenarios before today. I was ready for the bad news even if, in my heart, I didn’t believe there would be any. But, when they realised I hadn’t understood, they told me that every test was fine. They wondered why I had worried and I had to explain (because it was a different doctor) but it was all good. To be honest, I would have been shocked if it had not been fine but it was nice to hear and nice to see it written down. So, thanks for your help, Lola.

And, of course, the other good thing is F. We are becoming more ‘together’ as time goes on, in spite of my previous post. As those of you who read my blog often enough know, I am always full of doubts and uncertainties but even if we don’t seem to talk about anything important, of F I am certain and I thought I should tell you, lest you get the wrong idea.

And now I shall write a post on the current political happenings in the UK – just by way of a change.

Ice treading

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We don’t talk about it.

And here, my reader, you may be wondering what it is that we aren’t talking about. Well there’s nothing specific – it’s just anything that is difficult. We don’t discuss. And it’s not one-sided either. We skirt around a subject and only talk about it when it is absolutely necessary. And, when we talk about it we use the minimum of words and don’t discuss the implications or anything deeper than a conversation with an acquaintance.

I don’t know why. Or why we both do this.

An example. One thing I must do is earn more money. For various reasons my income, so far this year, has been less than I had planned for or expenses have been greater than expected or completely unexpected or unplanned. As a result I need more.

Therefore I must get more work – part-time work. This means teaching English again. In one way I don’t really mind. I had been worried that my English was disappearing; changing into the Ital-English spoken here. Me saying ‘We are in three’ instead of ‘There are three of us’ as an example; struggling to find the correct word to describe something and knowing that I know the word – I just haven’t used it nor heard it for so long. If I teach English my English will return to its proper level quickly because I will be reading more newspapers, books, etc. This is a very good thing.

It will also give me the money I need. So all good. Well, yes but…..

It will change some things. I will have to work evenings and weekends – which I don’t mind in itself although I had tried to keep them free – free for relaxing, etc. This, in turn, will curb the amount of time we are together. It will mean that going to bed at near midnight most evenings will not be acceptable. It will mean a lot of work outside the time I am teaching. It will mean my life will be mostly about work

For the last two or three nights I have promised myself that I will explain this to F as it will mean so much change for us. I know he won’t have a problem with it but it is almost as if, by saying it, I am making such a big deal of it and making it into a huge problem since we don’t really talk of these things.

And so, I have yet to tell him anything. It bugs me because it seems, by holding out, when I do tell him it will be such a huge thing, even if, although it is important, it’s only a change in the time we are together and nothing more.

I steel myself, before we see each other at night, that I WILL mention it tonight. I will force myself to say something. Instead, I don’t. Either I forget because, on seeing him, being with him is the only thing or I remember but think that ‘now is not the right time…..later’.

It is stupid and irresponsible and makes no sense at all – even to me!

This is just an example. There are many more – even some from his side!

It’s almost as if we feel like we are treading on thin ice, even after quite a time together and even if it is not or, rather, should not be. And we are, after all, grown up enough to know how to react. Maybe it’s just that we don’t know how the other will react?

I got my own shit to deal with.

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It is going to be bad news, apparently. Nothing I should worry about but I would be upset if I wasn’t told.

There are three things it could be: money, health or giving up.

Money is too obvious and, anyway, there would be no reason to be upset if I wasn’t told. Giving up and going back to the UK would be another thing that wouldn’t really upset me (although he might think it would). It would be strange though. I mean, we came together on this ‘big adventure’ and it would be cutting some sort of tie (even if we haven’t even emailed each other for over a month).

Health would only upset me because I hate it when other people tell me something and expect me to know. Come to think of it that would be the same for the Giving Up option.

So, yes, it’s better to tell me.

My bet is on health but I shouldn’t be surprised by anything at all! In fact, I should be prepared to hear something unexpected – after all, I no longer know what his life is about, nor do I understand it or him. It could well be something else entirely. We shall see.

But I have my own worries right now so I certainly don’t need his.