Recycling

(As in, double-posting, from opendiary.com. Don't hate.)

It's been raining almost ceaselessly for three days and doesn't really show signs of stopping soon, and I have remembered that temperature inversions are the work of the devil. So there's that.

Living with my parents is still happening and still not awesome, and not having a job makes that still less awesome. I spend a lot of time looking forward to visits with David, who, when I am with him lately, almost inevitably makes me smile.

I was poking around on Sheenagh Pugh's website and trying to reconcile myself to the fact that she actually hates the poem "Sometimes," which I've got posted on my front page on Opendiary, when I saw her reference another poet: Jenny Joseph. (Ok first of all, what a name.) It seems that I'm in the business of liking one-hit-wonder poems, because I think this one is great. It's called "Warning." It pretty much encompasses* my dreams of pensionerhood.

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple

With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired

And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells

And run my stick along the public railings

And make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain

And pick flowers in other people's gardens

And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat

And eat three pounds of sausages at a go

Or only bread and pickle for a week

And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry

And pay our rent and not swear in the street

And set a good example for the children.

We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?

So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised

When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

*This is not true, because my vision also involves things like cats, and watching PBS all the time, and yelling loudly about "young whippersnappers" and cracking people on the head with my cane. And reminiscing about how when I was a girl, everything was so much better/people knew how to do stuff/I had it way worse than all you goodfornothings/we knew the value of a dollar/we ate misery for breakfast and liked it.