Welcome To The Graveyard Of Ambition.

You're Gorgeous, You Old Hag, And If I Could Give You Just One Gift Ever For The Rest Of Your Life It Would Be This. Confidence. It Would Be The Gift Of Confidence. Either That Or A Scented Candle

I Had Always Been Led To Believe That Ageing Was A Slow And Gradual Process, The Creep Of A Glacier. Now I Realise That It Happens In A Rush, Like Snow Falling Off A Roof.

She Drinks Pints Of Coffee And Writes Little Observations And Ideas For Stories With Her Best Fountain Pen On The Linen-white Pages Of Expensive Notebooks. Sometimes, When It's Going Badly, She Wonders If What She Believes To Be A Love Of The Written Word Is Really Just A Fetish For Stationery.

It Would Be Inappropiate, Undignified, At 38, To Conduct Friendships Or Love Affairs With The Ardour Or Intensity Of A 22 Year Old. Falling In Love Like That? Writing Poetry? Crying At Pop Songs? Dragging People Into Photobooths? Taking A Whole Day To Make A Compilation Tape? Asking People If They Wanted To Share Your Bed, Just For Company? If You Quoted Bob Dylan Or Ts Eliot Or, God Forbid, Brecht At Someone These Days They Would Smile Politely And Step Quietly Backwards, And Who Would Blame Them? Ridiculous, At 38, To Expect A Song Or Book Or Film To Change Your Life.

My 20s Was A Sea Of Worry. I Worried About Benefit Forms, About Being Thrown Out Of My Flat. I Never Went On Holiday Because I Thought: 'what If An Audition Comes Up?' I Was A Nervous Wreck.