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Jenn AshworthFLEA CHICI bought new sheets, white, because I thought it would help, and I was lying on them and listening to a man with a West Indian accent tell a woman with a Radio 4 accent that he had two children who were both twenty-seven, but they weren’t twins. "Forgive me," she says, "if this is an impertinent question, but why do you think that some people have children with less thought than they would give to getting a pet? I don’t even need a king-sized bed , but I got it ages ago. It was buy one, get one free "Listen," he says easily, faintly amused, I think, although I am noticing the bed sheets aren’t, as I had hoped, sotlessly white, but shadowed with smears of mascara and a row of star shaped brown drops. Coffee. It looks like bullet holes. "Listen sweetheart," he says, "I did not have my children with less thought than some people give to getting a pet." "But surely," she says, and I wonder if this is a drama, a phone in, a documentary or what, "you must have heard of contraception?" I can hear him puffing out air. I imagine him. Shiny forehead, plough lines over his eyes, a bit of a beard. "I don’t believe in those things sweetheart," he says, "and these things happen." She doesn’t say anything. I twitch at my hair, and sink into the pillows. "These things happen," he says again. "Well nothing like that has ever happened to me," she says. I imagine her. Blouse, pencil skirt, nice shoes. Neat earrings, something like that. Crossing her legs. -o0o- I plan on writing, but spend forty-five minutes on the tinterweb looking at pictures of real writers’ desks. Lots of books. Post its. Fireplaces dotted with post-cards. ergonomic chairs and souvenirs from research trips. Hanif Kureshi has got flock wall paper like a real live specimen of the working classes, just because it makes him feel like he’s in an Indian restaurant. It’s kitsch when he does it. That’s it. I need a desk. Not Ikea, (my friend pronounces it to rhyme with ‘stickier’ which lets me know these come-in-pieces clean-looking desks are undesirable, or worse, not to be desired). Something that comes in one piece. No, a table. An old table. Something from the flea market. I’ll distress it. I’ll stick my postcards and photographs to the top of it. It will inspire me. It will, at the very least, look inspiring and not distress me. I’ll wipe the fudge of dust from the tea-set and drink tea with slices of lemon and sit at the table. How to get it up the stairs?  I’ll move house. Somewhere small, so I can keep it clean. There will be two bedrooms, one each. It will have a yard, and a twirly thing to put the washing on. I’ll paint everything in white, so that the quirky possessions and characterful art prints that I will acquire can stand out. Flea market style. Junk shop chic. (These are the titles of books). I don’t want much really. I’ll need a better job though. Best download those application forms. I could work (it would be work, if I was sitting bolt upright, sipping tea at a desk. I know it would) at a table, a real table, in a real house. Not get felt tip on the bed sheets. There is a blue smear on the pillow. Biro. I say this in my head: note to self, dab with bleach (or toilet cleaner, if there’s no bleach: it’s the same thing) before inserting into washing machine. Bed sheets. Fifty pounds on new bed sheets. King-size are more expensive, and I don’t even need a king-sized bed, but I got it ages ago, when I did, and I’m stuck with it now. It was buy one, get one free. I’m not in debt. I don’t share a bank account. I don’t claim benefits. I say that, like this: I DON’T CLAIM BENEFITS. But I still lied about how much they cost. And it wasn’t even buy one get one free. It was buy one, and might as well buy an extra one because if one might help, two might help twice as much. Fifty pounds. No wonder I can’t afford to move house, and there is a black patch in the shape of a continent on the living room ceiling. One day, I might go mad and point it out to someone. That, I will say, pointing like an estate agent, is mildew, one of the five types of your common or garden household mould. In our case, it’s very special, and caused by a little leak in the toilet, which, as you will correctly assume, it situated just above. Water, pissy water, to be exact, and I will twirl my wrists, gesture, and feel like I am wearing a tie. If I go really mad, I might elaborate, and start speaking in upper case. ALL MY OWN PISS, I will say, DRIPPING INTO THE JOISTS! OVER OUR HEADS! IKEA! TAX CREDITS! FLEA CHIC! -o0o- I should have turned the radio off. The man is sounding a bit panicky now. "Well," he says, "all I can say is that you must have been very fortunate, because there are lots of people who it does happen to. Very fortunate." That bitch is still sitting there with her legs crossed, doesn’t know there’s a run in her tights, and a splash of dirty water drying grey on the back of her calf. She’s puckering, sucking her teeth, clamping her white nylon coated thighs together. "But didn’t you ever think about the children? About what kind of life you could give to them? Tell me, what job were you doing at the time?" He’s sounding like a victim now, saying: "When that girl who I was seeing said she wanted to have a baby I thought this woman loves me, she loves me, and it is only natural she should be having feelings like this." I lean over into the smoke and coffee smelling sheets and turn the radio off. I can hear myself breathing, the crackle of a crisp packet under the duvet, the metronomic drip of the toilet. Writer Jenn Ashworth is a frequent contributor to UnMadeUp. Since her last story for this site, Frogstools, she has completed her first novel. Photographer MockneyRebel's sheets are much cleaner than Jenn's. Apparently. 9:17 AM - 27/5/2007 - comments {0} - post commentFound writing No 5 This 16-word found short story comes from the excellent blog passive-agressive notes from roommates, neighbors, co-workers and strangers which features an embarrassment of similar riches. New non-fiction from Jenn Ashworth coming soon. 11:34 PM - 23/5/2007 - comments {0} - post commentWeb archiveI had an email this morning from the Web Archiving Consortium who are acting on behalf of the British Library to create an archive of this site. It's part of their scheme to create a collection of current UK blogs. It's nice to be asked, but it is, of course, a minor copyright nightmare. Copyright for UnMadeUp pieces rightly belongs not to the blog, but to the writers. I'm going to contact as many contributors as I can, but if you've contributed could you drop me a line to let me know if you're happy with your work being archived by the British Library. Of course you are. I know... but I need you to say so. 4:35 PM - 17/5/2007 - comments {0} - post commentWilliam ShawTHE FORTUNE OF WAR, KING'S ROAD ARCHESSophie’s father came unprepared for the weather. He’s so cold they have to buy him an extra layer – a red No Fear hoodie. It’s hilarious to see it on her dad, the hood flying back up in the wind and him trying keep it back down. "Can we go in one that's a bit more gay?" he asks... He’s never really been around gay culture. He just wants to see.They have a half there, but he’s not impressed. "Can we go in one that’s a bit more gay?" he asks, as if he was expecting people in a Brighton gay bar to be walking round in leather thongs or something.
4:54 PM - 16/5/2007 - comments {0} - post comment41 Places installation
 ... watched from the lift by Japanese tourists. The story - 23: ...the sheer nothingy-ness of her dad - sits on the glass wall, and is lit from behind by the lift when it's at that floor. After this they moved down to a phone box on the seafront on which they were installing the story only to find someone had kicked the glass out last night. Thanks to Steve Gilson of BT who's organising a repair. People are dead nice, sometimes. The site 41places is now fully live, too. Well, mostly. 4:30 PM - 2/5/2007 - comments {3} - post commentThe Brighton MomentA couple of years ago I hosted a night called The Brighton Moment as part of the Brighton Festival Fringe. Brighton is full of writers. The idea was to get some of them to write a piece about an event that, for them, defined Brighton... true stories set in a time and place, part of a continuing obsession of mine. A bunch of writers including Mick Jackson, CJ Sansom, Marek Kohn and Susanna Jones took part. 8:08 AM - 29/4/2007 - comments {0} - post commentDaniel CourtRESULTIt was a Tuesday. I had woken up late, missed my 9am lectures and, skipping more lectures downed a can of Red Bull in the sun. All my jeans were dirty so I had to make do with the stupid half-combat, half-short things, with the elastic that wasn’t strong enough to hold them around your waist, which meant that if you put your iPod and your wallet in any pocket they’d fall down. I miss my lectures on Tuesday as a rule of thumb. I work back home, which is a forty-five minute train ride away from our university. If I go to my afternoon lectures it means that not only do I have to dawdle around the campus for a few hours after the morning lectures but I also have to get the train home in rush-hour pandemonium, which is testing enough. Seeing as the lecture theatre is closer to the station than my house it’s (supposed to be) more practical to take my things for work: a bag complete with coat, books, washing and a suit for my job. You can see why it’s easier if I skip the Tuesday afternoons. The downside being all that education I’d be missing out on.  The only reason I’d decided to go on this Tuesday was because I missed Thursday’s lectures and I thought I’d feel better doing some study before I go to work. Get the mind going and all that.I was the first of the late person to arrive, the others I’d hurried past outside smoking their cigarettes, all of which seemed suitably surprised that I was going to the lecture instead of “partying hard” on the dance floors of Squires, Source or any of the other nightclubs around the uni. Stumbling in with my hefty weekend bag swinging around me, whilst trying fix the pants that didn’t quite stay up gave the impression of a fairly confused, struggling human vortex. After disrupting most of the class and stopping my lecturer mid-sentence I was reminded again why I neglect my usual Tuesday attendance. “Today we will be learning the Civil Engineering Standard Method of Measurement - CESMM” [pronounced “sez ‘um”] I walk down the road with my bag swinging, my trousers falling down and a big grin on my face... The institution of Civil Engineering website tells me, “The object of CESMM is to set forth the procedure according to which the Bill of Quantities shall be prepared and priced and the quantities of work expressed and measured. The latest edition (3rd edition) was published in 1991 and reprinted with corrections in 1992.” I have learnt that right now. I can safely say that I paid no attention in the lecture. I spent most of the time trying to think up jokes regarding “sez ‘um” and wishing I was on a train going home.Then my phone goes and it’s my brother. He doesn’t usually call me, especially not during the day. He’s got training. How odd. I don’t answer and press the volume key on my handset to stop the already silent phone from vibrating. The phone goes again and is suitably ignored. Then my mind, numbed by civil engineering and the measurement thereof, begins to piece things together. Alert, I stand up and excuse myself from the lesson. I stroll into the vacant, silent corridors of the Harris building. “Alright our kid? How’s it looking? Did you get one?” I ask my brother. I want to tell him that it’s ok if he didn’t get a contract but I keep quiet. The rest of my brother’ and my family’s life will be changed significantly with this next sentence. The anticipation of it is like some twisted combination of Christmas Eve, the opening credits of your favourite film and a full bladder. “Well…” he starts disappointedly. “…They only gave me a pro!” “What? A professional contract? For real?” I shriek. “Yeah! Check me out!” I stop shouting down the phone to my brother and return to HB235, feverously collecting my weekend bag and the half-hearted notes and doodles I was working on, excusing myself from the lecture. I knew that my brother could do it. There have been a lot of obstacles in his way and he’s worked hard with his football from a very young age. It’s prevented him from having a lot of the fun that most children his age could. Nonetheless he’s persevered and come out tops. However, this success rings home a few truths. I have not stuck at my course. I have done well but I have viewed university is just an excuse to doss around, a stopgap between college and work. The work is easy enough but it’s the same tired story of the bright student lacking application. As I walked down the road to the train station with my bag swinging, my trousers falling down and a big grin on my face I decided that things have to change. My parents don’t know that I plan to re-sit my second year, but they will soon. Daniel Court wrote the story Iron Pyrite back in March. He's a student at the University of Central Lancashire. Paul Fenton, who took the photograph, is a third-year student at the University of Essex. 5:13 PM - 27/4/2007 - comments {14} - post comment41 Places: 41 Stories
It's so multi-format, in fact, that we're also producing an edition in this old-school format. 41 Places: 41 Stories – the book – launches UnMadeUp as a commercial publisher alongside the web presence. 41 Places; 41 Stories is a 96 page paperback, containing all 41 stories featured in the exhibition. It will be available to festival-goers during the festival – from May 8th up until May 27th – after which it will go on general sale.
2:07 PM - 24/4/2007 - comments {2} - post comment41 Places
6:19 AM - 17/4/2007 - comments {2} - post comment"jodi"WATCH MEDavid and I met in 1985, at a bar called the Temple Tavern in Akron, Ohio. I was newly separated, not yet divorced, and looking desperately to fulfill my desire to be in love again, I wanted to ache for someone, I wanted to have sex that would ring through my being for days… and in doing so become complete. It was winter, the last week of February, an all out blizzard that night. We talked briefly, and I invited him to come home with me. He said ok, but he had come with some other people. He to give them a ride home first... No problem... I went home, and perched myself in the window so that I could see him, and he would have no trouble finding me when he finally appeared thru the snow. He never showed, never called... Finally, I went to bed alone.  The following Monday I went to the Temple, as it was pitcher night - your favorite mixed drink served in a pitcher for only $5.00 - and happened upon his friend, Bob, who I recognized. I asked him where Dave was. As convenience would have it, he was at Bob’s house, so he gave me the number. I called and went to get David. To make a long story short, he came home with me this time, and proceeded to show me what was missing in my life. The most blatant display of human animal affection I had ever experienced. I was bitten. I was hooked. I was in love. Two days later I came home from work to find out he had moved his stuff in while I was at work. We were one. David and me, two lost souls no longer lost, joined by need and desire and not much else, but we proclaimed our love for each other and finally, I felt as if I could be complete... So it began, and our fiery relationship lasted thru numerous moves to Florida, jail sentences, violent arguments, separations, infidelities, massive drugs and alcohol… highs and lows as I had never experienced. chaos and desperation that only drew me closer to him, to my need to make it all ok, take care of him, help him, make him love me in the same insane, obsessive, all encompassing way, I loved him. I only ever wanted us to be together, exclusively, to love each other, to be a forever couple, or ”go down in a blaze of glory" - as Sid Vicious of the Sex pistols so aptly put it - David and me, to eternity... And thru it all the sex was life-giving. He could right any wrong, be forgiven any indiscretion. There was no bump or bruise or emotional hurt that he couldn’t fix by laying me down and mending my torn soul with his magic wand. No desperation he couldn’t kiss away. He was my knight in shining armor... Until the next time. I never spoke to him again... After what seemed like forever together - it really only amounted to a little over six years - I finally gathered the courage one early morning to stop... to tell David he couldn’t come home.He had left me a few days before, taking all of his worldly possessions, his clothes and his stereo, and now at daybreak he had appeared in a friend’s car that he had decided to use without permission, after having sex with the same friend’s wife, and, well, just generally screwing up the people he chose to leave me for this time. Somehow, in some way, from deep inside me I know not where, I was strong enough to let him go, and to go on without him. For once I didn’t chase him down and bring him home, and start the vicious cycle all over again. Instead we parted with me telling him, "You can’t go thru life being nothing but a good fuck." And he replied, knowingly, with that little tilt of his head, and his ever sexy smile, "Watch me." I saw him one more time, taking out the trash at some unfamiliar house in downtown Fort Lauderdale, in those turquoise shorts he only ever wore if there was no clean laundry and every other thing he owned had been worn more than the reasonable amount of times. I didn’t stop, I never spoke to him again. I moved - no forwarding address... Last Friday, while paging thru the Akron Beacon Journal, I came across his grandfather’s obituary. And as I read the notice, I saw the words, “Preceded in death by his grandson, David A. Gardon..." He had died January 17 2004, one month shy of his 38th birthday. I was numb... I still am... my David, my love, my obsession.... is gone. It was ok not to be with him; it was ok not to know what he was doing, or how he was, as to know would have been too dangerous, too painful. I had many times searched the Internet for information about him, checked the jails, thought about calling his grandparents, just to make sure he was ok... but I never did. I couldn’t resist him then, and it was possible, if the situation presented itself, I couldn’t resist him even now. I found out this week he died of an Oxycontin overdose, he and the girl he was with...found dead, together...and as shameless and perverted as it might sound... it should have been me... Me and David forever... gone out in the blaze of drug fueled glory we so often proclaimed would be ours, forever together... I will always love you, my David... no matter what... "jodi"'s last contribution to Un-Made-Up was A Piece Of My Story. Her autobiographical blog is why paisley???. The painting is by Julian Allen. When I started working for Details magazine in 1991, the Julian Allen and the great writer Bruce Wagner were publishing the comic strip Wild Palms in the magazine. At the time, it marked the magazine out as something totally different. Julian Allen died in 1998. 8:02 AM - 12/4/2007 - comments {0} - post comment
11:19 PM - 27/3/2007 - comments {0} - post commentWilliam ShawHalf way through making the children's packed lunches this morning I stopped by the laptop and saw I'd got an email from Kimeyo.It's a real joy to hear from him. The email gives no clue to what he's doing now; it's just a short note. It gives a phone number, but I'm guessing he'll be asleep by now. Kimeyo was a young man I first met on a street corner in Southcentral Los Angeles when I was writing a book called Westsiders. Over months he became the real star of the book, which was about young Southcentral men trying to make it in the hip hop industry. There were rappers who had greater rhyme skills, and one or two who were better connected, but none had the obvious charisma that Kimeyo had back then. He had good looks, a casual, husky flow, and always an aura of mischief about him. As I spent time in his company I discovered he was also a genius at ducking and diving, searching out the next connection, getting the next day's studio time for free, hooking up with the neighbourhood's hip hop stars, hustling a few dollars just to keep on the move, always on the verge of greatness. He never got the deal he deserved, but that, of course, was the theme of the book. He was also his own worst enemy back then. You'd have to read the book to find out the sort of craziness he got up to in those days. He's an older man now. I don't think he'd thank me for dragging everything he did back then into the public eye yet another time.  But what I also learned was he carried a lot of baggage. Like a lot of the young men I met there, he had had a shitty start in life. A lot of his material was about the father he'd barely known. His father had been murdered on 7 July 1992. I remember the exact date because it featured in one of Kimeyo's rhymes, one called Dear Dad. There's a part of West Coast hip hop that is all about making you remember things. I still have the CD. Like so much of Southcentral's music of the time, the track was about bearing witness, making a connection to that catastrophic sense of loss that floated everywhere, making what was invisible to most Americans visible. It was about telling stories, most of them true.When the book came out he took everything I'd written on the chin, which was generous. I put in a lot about his personal life. Some of it cannot have been easy to read. A couple of years later, when he almost had an album out, he flew me out to LA to write some more about him. That was fun. He was getting married. He had a deal on a new label. It was nice to imagine that he might finally get somewhere. He didn't. Things fell apart again, disastrously, typically. Every few years he calls me, or sends an email. I promise I'll keep in touch. I let things slide. I'm always grateful to hear he's well. Every time there's another story. I'm sure there will be this time. I emailed him back. "I'll call you tonight."  8:46 AM - 15/3/2007 - comments {0} - post comment41 PlacesAt the moment I'm spending most of my time wandering around Brighton, going up to people and demanding, "What are you up to?" It's a great to have the licence to do that. 10:55 AM - 12/3/2007 - comments {0} - post commentUn-Made-Up contributor Tanya Murray is one of three writers picked to present their work at Short Fuse at Brighton's Komedia Club in Gardner Street this week. 8.30pm. Tickets £3 on the door. 5:58 PM - 4/3/2007 - comments {0} - post commentFound Writing No. 4 The photo is by Julia, who discovered this among notes left by patrons of a local airport that was being redveloped. She writes: "Evergreen Field was a small grass runway airport in what has become a very populated area of Vancouver Washington. The man who had owned it died several years ago and his family could no longer keep it open. The land has been sold to developers and the last plane flew out on July 1, 2006. It has been a sad transition for Vancouver." 6:24 PM - 3/3/2007 - comments {0} - post comment
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Recent Entries - Nik Perring - William Shaw - Emma J. Lannie - William Shaw - Nik Perring Public Service Announcement: Un-Made-Up becomes giddy with excitement at the prospect of publishing short, beautifully wrought pieces of non-fiction writing. Submissions may be edited but will only be published with the final approval of the author. For local colour - or color - local spellings are retained when appropriate. All copyright belongs to the authors, illustrators and photographers. COMING SOON • A story of teenage love and coffee • 41 Places • The one-legged man on the beach • |
Later they come down to The Fortune of War. The wind here wild, so strong you can lean right into it without falling. Dad’s red hoodie is flapping around his face, both of them laughing hysterically, wind whipping tears from their eyes.
A package arrived the other day filled with copies of the hardback US edition Westsiders that my New York agent had been trying to clear out of his office. They're lying in the hallway. His clutter is now my clutter. If anyone wants a copy, I will send them one for free in return for a contribution to Un-Made-Up. See the column to the right for the usual rules of play. First three Un-Made-Up stories recieved get one. |