Katharine's an Auld Dog

Katharine can’t be bothered to remember how old she is, but she remembers the Berlin Wall coming down and the Tiananmen Square massacre so that’s all right then.

She likes old stuff and drinking pots and pots of tea. Like Queenie she has come to Canada from Dublin, unlike Queenie she has settled in Niagara.

Nothing beats a good night’s sleep. I’m evangelical about sleep. When I was a small child I often daydreamed about a perfect world where everything could be done from bed (including driving). Thanks to my laptop, mobile phone, and the internet I’m well on my way to achieving that dream.

If I’m not expecting a visitor I won’t answer the door. The chances of encountering something nasty or boring are too high. People are too quick to open doors and answer phones to people they don’t know, and with a little bit of reflection probably wouldn’t want to know. Easy intimacy is two people lying about themselves to each other. Privacy is the greatest gift, don’t piss it away for a high myspace rating.

Music is dangerous. A very dear friend once said ‘You’d be this perfect girlfriend, except you hate music’. I don’t hate music, I just don’t trust it. Music manipulates your emotions. It brings you to undesired highs and lows, it pushes out all self and breeds itself into your unconscious. That’s its power, and it is wonderful and dangerous, and utterly, utterly untrustworthy. You have to be really careful with the music you listen to because it fucks with your soul.

A man who cooks is a fine thing. Just as long as he’s not prissy or prideful about it. Cooking is not an opportunity to indulge in high-tech, shiny-cock, gadget buying and it’s not something extraordinary that demands lavish praise. It’s a natural expression of love, millions of women all over the earth do it every day.

I remember remembering being in the womb. I was 4 and my parents left me with my grandmother for the winter. They put me to bed and left. I had a nightlight shaped like Donald Duck, but I was still very lonely and scared. So I curled my knees up to my chest under the blanket and put my thumb to my mouth and the moment I did it I was stunned by a sudden flood of feeling. It was something I had no words for, and still don’t really. It was complete peace. Not just the absence of pain or worry, not just security; it was something completely alien from anything I knew and yet it was utterly familiar. I remember thinking very clearly ‘I have felt this before’. But I could not remember having ever curled up like that. It was very strange, and it was the first moment I ever became aware of memory as a part of my being. That there were parts of me I did not know I knew. I think discovering these unknowns is one of our reasons for living.

Every woman should spend at least one day a week braless. It’s good for your circulation. And don’t buy M&S. They’re rubbish. Conversely, every woman should buy a set of outrageously expensive underwear for herself once a year. Not valentine’s day red, lacy crap but something really stunning. If you’re going to be poked by underwire it might as well be by something that makes you look great.

I have never believed in looking for love. Sex yes, love no. Apart from anything, sex is more reliably found. And yet, without the emotional connection, it is more often than not crap. So it’s better not to overthink the whole matter and just get on with what you’d be doing anyway.

I believe in God. But I don’t think it’s polite to go on about it. I pray, though.

We need to live with animals. Animals remind us that there are other lives intersecting our that are not human, and do not have human needs or priorities.

I’m completely stunned by the fact that I’m living the life I’ve always wanted because it’s not like I had a grand strategy. If anything I followed the path of most illogic. My life has been a concatenation of random events, predictable disasters, and strange coincidences. Most of my ‘important’ decisions were based on dreams that I had. And yet here I am, doing a job I love in a great location. Life is very, very strange.

Auld Dog is an intermittent column on this blog, where people offer their pearls of wisdom for the rest of us to ponder. If you would like to be an Auld Dog, send 600 - 700 words of wisdom, along with a bio and photo (or I'll write/ pick them) to auld.dog@gmail.com and I'll post it here.